Housing inventory dipped 17 percent year-over-year, bringing the long-bloated housing marketplace closer to equilibrium – at least among visible inventories. As tracked by Bill McBride of Calculated Risk, though the declines are seasonally inspired (inventory typically declines through the

Industry representatives of the manufactured home business are prepping for a Wednesday testimony before the House Financial Services Committee that will, according to reports, spotlight the critical failures of legislation dating back to

The latest Mortgage Monitor from financial firm Lender Processing Services (LPS) was a study in contrasts, showing that though originations continue to decline, the quality of those originations continues to improve. Originations were down 10.1 percent from November to

Principal write downs have emerged, in the past month, as one of the major controversies on Capital Hill, with Congressional Democrats and the White House lobbying for such a program from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) – and

Both buyers and sellers should be made aware that buying a home is often not a quick process. LeapRE found that last year, the average time taken from the contract to the closing was 53 days. The chart below

Improved employment figures and record home affordability levels could spawn a minor housing recovery this year, analyst Mark Fleming said in the CoreLogic MarketPulse report. Fleming said economic concerns peaked in the summer of 2011 when politicians were stuck

By Tara Steele, AGBeat The housing market continues to struggle as Realtors report one in three contracts now fail, up nearly 10 percent from the year prior. Failures are due to declined mortgage applications or failed underwriting as appraised

The Federal Housing Administration will toughen its standards for approving lenders that insure mortgages on its behalf and force more of them to buy back defaulted loans. FHA Commissioner Carol Galante said the upcoming rule changes will help the

Construction has been one of the hardest hit sectors of the housing downturn, and though economic tides remain uncertain, the growing multifamily market has been a source of growth and jobs for construction workers. As a recent HousingWire article paints

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has been generating a fair amount of media buzz the last couple months, but unfortunately, little has been positive. Beginning with a University of Pennsylvania study that severely questioned the agency’s finances going forward,

That makes two – after making national headlines with her lawsuit against Wells Fargo for racially-inspired predatory lending, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has done it again, this time in a lawsuit against the parent company of Standard &

Baird & Warner Real Estate announced today that it has acquired west suburban real estate broker Prime Property Partners, expanding its field of service to several western neighborhoods in the Chicagoland

New single-family home sales in December fell by 2.2 percent from November and 7.3 percent from December 2010, capping off what analysts are labeling a new record low in new home sales – though 2012 may be a new

The National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) released its latest Confidence Index yesterday, showing a distinct rise in year-over-year confidence in December among the more than 3,000 agents surveyed. A measure of the strength of the current housing market and expectations about

Residential brokerage @properties has acquired The Tricia Fox Group, a 19-agent group headed by veteran Gold Coast broker Tricia Fox, part of a post-acquisition shakeup that has become a recurring story in the real estate

One of the big takeaways from President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address was a new government-led refinancing plan that would allow homeowners with current, non-GSE mortgages to refinance at today’s historically-low interest rates. Funding the refinancings with a new