Residential mortgage debt continued to fall in the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report for the fourth quarter, dropping $42 billion, or 1.5 percent. Though it was the smallest drop since 2009, mortgage debt has now declined by $777

Families around the world watched as Macaulay Culkin defended his family home from burglars Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in the 1990 hit film “Home Alone.” That home, a red, brick, four-bedroom Colonial located in Winnetka, recently sold for

The “Echo Boomers,” the upcoming generation of working professionals aged 15 to 29, make up nearly 65 million individuals born between 1981 and 1995, an increase of nearly four million from the preceding “Baby Bust”generation. Clearly, quite a few

Consumer attitudes on both housing and the greater economy appear to be stabilizing, based on the results of Fannie Mae’s February 2012 National Housing Survey, a telephone poll of more than 1,000 Americans that assess their attitude on a wide

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray indicated in a speech Tuesday before the National Association of Attorneys General that his agency is preparing a new list of rules and guidelines for mortgage servicers drafted to better inform

CoreLogic’s Home Price Index, the measure of home values that is used by the Federal Reserve in its economic research, might have fallen for the sixth straight month in January, but it also contributed to what the National Association

There were quite a few features in the $26 billion mortgage settlement in February between the nation’s five largest banks and 49 state attorneys general, but one of the more notable details involved a $10 billion commitment to principal

President Obama unveiled yet another housing-related policy at a news conference yesterday that dramatically lowers interest rates for two to three million refinancing homeowners with Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgages. The policy would modify the FHA’s “Streamline” refinancing option

Default risk for American homeowners fell to its lowest level in seven years in the first quarter of 2012, according to the latest Default Risk Index from University Financial Associates (UFA), with improving economic conditions and pricing being among

Standard & Poor’s released the latest Case-Shiller Indices last Tuesday, reporting a 1.1 percent drop from November to December, a 4 percent drop from December 2010, and for Chicago, respective drops of 2 and 6.5 percent. Those indices, however,

We’re reported numerous times on the surging nature of the multifamily market, but a new study out from Fitch Ratings has pointed out a strange contradiction in the market’s performance that calls into question its relative

The REO Initiative, the government-led plan to convert thousands of GSE-owned REO units into investor-managed rentals, has been meet with both tacit and strong support from economic analysts, but Realtors appear to be lukewarm toward the measure, if a

Realtors’ confidence in the market appears to be increasing; according to the latest Realtor Confidence Index, conducted by the National Associatoin of Realtors, 67 percent of agents expect prices to rise in the months to come.  Showing generally positive

Chicagoland’s top-producing agents gathered at Chicago Agent magazine’s Top Producers event at the Whirlpool Showroom, sponsored by Pulte Group, to celebrate and share their secrets of success. Here top producers tell us how they get their clients to accept

The Illinois House has approved a Senate bill that would prohibit cities, counties and other local government bodies from raising property taxes on homeowners for years when the assessed value of their home declines, according to a Chicago Real

Predicting the behavior of the housing industry is notoriously difficult – even Warren Buffett just conceded failure in that area of economic foresight – but as Bloomberg reports, there have been quite a few signs in the last couple