News archive about rentals and rent to own in Columbus, Ohio at sunskitehomes.com

* Home Prices Declined at Record Pace in October – Wall Street Journal
12/31/2008 The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home-price index, a closely watched gauge, fell 2.2% in October from September and 18% from a year earlier, the sharpest declines in the data's two-decade history. The index has fallen 23.4% since its mid-2006 peak, pushing prices back down to March 2004 levels.

* Columbia Gas investing more in energy-efficiency programs – Columbus Dispatch
12/30/2008 Just in time for the coldest months, central Ohio natural-gas customers will have new resources to make their homes more energy-efficient - and perhaps save a bit on their heating bills. Columbia Gas of Ohio's WarmChoice weatherization program for low-income residents will increase its budget to $7.1 million in 2009, up from $5.5 million.

* Mortgage plan could keep 8,000 in homes – Columbus Dispatch
12/30/2008 A mortgage-modification program that could help 8,000 Ohioans stay in their homes is under way, say officials of Countrywide Financial Corp. and the Ohio attorney general's office.

* Property-tax bills finally in the mail – Columbus Dispatch
12/30/2008 The last batch of Franklin County property-tax bills should be arriving in the mail Wednesday, about 10 days later than normal.

* Developer: You can't force things on the market – San Francisco Chronicle
12/29/2008 When no one wants to finance or buy what you build, the term developer takes on a new definition. For Christopher Meany, the unraveling real estate market means focusing on long-term projects instead of erecting today's, preserving capital rather than putting it to work and self-inflicting the sort of delays he'd grumble about if imposed by some agency.

* The Isle That Rattled the World: Tiny Iceland Created a Vast Bubble, Leaving Wreckage Everywhere When It Popped – Wall Street Journal
12/27/2008 Iceland is an extreme casualty of an era in which it became extraordinarily easy to borrow money. But it was more than that: An examination of the nation's banking system, which collapsed over about 10 days this autumn, reveals the degree to which Iceland was one of the international financial bubble's most enthusiastic players. Home to fewer people than Wichita, Kan., Iceland became so leveraged and so deeply intertwined with the global financial infrastructure that its collapse has rattled the world from Tokyo to California to the Middle East.

* By Saying Yes, WaMu Built Empire on Shaky Loans – New York Times
12/27/2008 As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John D. Parsons was accustomed to seeing baby sitters claiming salaries worthy of college presidents, and schoolteachers with incomes rivaling stockbrokers’.

* Refi madness: Falling interest rates are leading to a rush to get cheaper mortgages – money.cnn.com
12/26/2008 Falling interest rates are fueling a mortgage refinance frenzy as homeowners rush to reduce their housing payments. The average rate for a 30-year, fixed mortgage dropped to 5.08% last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, more than a full point lower than just a month ago.

* Dream of a home goes awry in south Atlanta – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
12/26/2008 Park Place South, once touted by President Bush, has left some first-time buyers struggling.

* Real estate agent: Market took vacation from common sense – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
12/25/2008 A new crop of faded signs may be in the offing, judging from data released this week. Existing home sales in November were off 10.6 percent and new home sales 35 percent compared to the same period last year. Prices on resales fell 13.2 percent, which might be the largest one-year decline since the Great Depression, while new-home prices declined 11.5 percent year to year. Rising joblessness and foreclosures threaten to make the problem even worse before the market turns around.

* Want to brave the wild world of foreclosures? Follow this advice – money.cnn.com
12/24/2008 As home prices continue to skid and foreclosure rates soar (up a further 38% since the third quarter of 2007), some investors are on the lookout for outrageous bargains. Think you're ready to jump in?

* UK home prices to dip 10 pct in '09, say surveyors – Miami Herald
12/24/2008 House prices in Britain will fall 10 percent next year as banks rein in lending and buyers are deterred by the economic slowdown, a leading surveyors' group forecast Wednesday. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said the fall would bring house prices, which have roughly tripled over the last decade, down to at least 25 percent below their summer 2007 peak.

* Riding the housing bust – money.cnn.com
12/23/2008 If you want to mark the moment when real estate morphed from every American's dream investment into every American's nightmare, try the third quarter of 2007. That's when the foreclosure rate, which had been slowly creeping upward for three decades and was flat all spring, suddenly leaped 32%, from .59% to .78% of all mortgages.Most were surprised, but as always, a few saw it coming.

* Bank lets 500 customers skip a mortgage payment – Charlotte Observer
12/23/2008 One bank is playing Santa for 500 lucky homeowners in this season of foreclosures and sinking home values – a gesture paid in part by employees forgoing their annual office party. ING Direct forgave $861,513.25 in January mortgage payments – or an average of $1,700 per household — for the 500 customers who won the online bank's essay contest. ING Direct cancelled its holiday parties this year, said spokesman Jeff Mirabello, partly offsetting the cost of the contest.

* Foreclosing may cost banks more – Columbus Dispatch
12/22/2008 Mildred Stalnaker is losing her home to foreclosure. She says her lender, Wells Fargo, refused to help her after her husband died in 2006.

* Meltdown 101: Is now the right time for refinancing? – Myrtle Beach Sun News
11/21/2008 With mortgage rates sinking to the lowest level since the early 1960s, homeowners around the country are giving themselves an early holiday present: a refinanced mortgage with lower monthly payments. Should you be doing the same?

* Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates at 37-year low – San Francisco Chronicle
12/21/2008 Rates on 30-year fixed mortgages dropped last week to their lowest levels in at least 37 years, as the Federal Reserve pledged to pour money into the mortgage market in an effort to spur the moribund U.S. housing market. Freddie Mac reported Thursday that average rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 5.19 percent, down from the year's previous low of 5.47 percent, set the previous week.

* Rent-to-own an option in tough real estate market – San Francisco Chronicle
12/21/2008 For some, it's time to get creative: Enter the lease-option deal, otherwise known as rent-to-own. These arrangements - around for decades - are contracts between buyers and sellers that don't involve banks, mortgage companies or, necessarily, real estate agents.

* Where is the Sacramento-area housing market going? – Sacramento Bee
12/21/2008 There are big years when the bottom drops out, the unimaginable occurs and minds reel from it all. That was 2008.

* Half-Price Homes in California’s Bay Area – Wall Street Journal
12/19/2008 The median price for houses and condos in the nine-county area fell to $350,000 in November, a 6.7% drop from October and a record 44.4% plunge from last November. This November’s median sale price clocked in at the lowest since September of 2000. And, what’s more, it is nearly half of last summer’s peak $665,000 median.

* Homeowners struggle, but then walk away from mortgages – Los Angeles Daily News
12/18/2008 Diane Shackle found it gut-wrenching to walk away from a mortgage she took out in times that were better for both her and the U.S. economy. But the reality was undeniable: While she was keeping up with the monthly payments, she said she could no longer afford to buy food for herself or even kitty litter for her two cats.

* Borrowers may get break; savers' suffering to worsen – Sacramento Bee
12/18/2008 What does the Fed rate cut mean to you with a mortgage, car loan and credit cards? You could be a winner if you have a home equity line of credit. But if you've socked away money in a savings account, you could be a loser.

* Buffett takes a stake in Triangle: Prudential parent buys York Simpson – Charlotte Observer
12/17/2008 Warren Buffett has bought one of the Triangle's oldest residential real estate firms. The parent company of Prudential Carolinas Realty -- one of numerous companies owned by the billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway -- has bought York Simpson Underwood. The merger creates the region's third-biggest brokerage -- and one that hopes to grow bigger still.

* Troubled homeowners get a break from IRS – Sacramento Bee
12/17/2008 The IRS is concerned that its 1 million liens attached to properties may be contributing to the nation's foreclosure crisis. On Tuesday, it announced a policy allowing homeowners to request that federal tax liens take a secondary position behind that of their lenders.

* Fannie Mae gives renters a break – money.cnn.com
12/15/2008 Fannie Mae, the battered mortgage giant, has agreed to act as an interim landlord for thousands of tenants living in foreclosed homes around the country. Fannie will sign new leases for the approximately 4,000 renters in its foreclosed properties, said spokesman Brian Faith.

* Builder confidence holds at historic lows – money.cnn.com
12/15/2008 Industry group says homebuilders' sentiment remained low in December as economic conditions deteriorate.

* A step-by-step guide to completing a short sale – Sarasota Herald-Tribune
12/14/2008 More than a few financially strapped owners have tried to unload their homes via what's known in real-estate parlance as a "short sale," only to end up being stymied by what most believe to be an unsympathetic, uncooperative lender.

* Window Installation Creates Problems – Wall Street Journal
12/14/2008 Window installation has become more of a problem as houses have become more energy efficient. Windows used to be installed leaving a gap for air flow to occur. Now they are completely sealed. While less cold drafts occur, the reduction in air means any water that gets in can't evaporate, making leaks more of a problem.

* Bank of America to cut up to 35,000 jobs – Columbus Dispatch
12/12/2008 Bank of America Corp. said yesterday it expects to eliminate 30,000 to 35,000 jobs in the next three years, as it faces a deteriorating economic environment and tries to absorb Merrill Lynch & Co.

* Foreclosure activity rises in state, falls elsewhere – Sacramento Bee
12/12/2008 November foreclosure activity rose in California but fell in the rest of the country to its lowest level since June, analyst RealtyTrac reported Thursday. The firm credited new state laws and aggressive loan modification programs in dampening foreclosure nationally yet advised against premature optimism.

* Foreclosures dip - but hold the applause – money.cnn.com
12/11/2008 November foreclosure filings dropped 7% from October, but that may be the calm before the storm.

* Ask Dr. Real Estate: How Do I Work With Seasoned Citizens? – realestate.yahoo.com
12/10/2008 There are an increasing number of Realtors who find that working with senior citizens is a very rewarding career niche. In working with folks who have deep emotional ties to their homes (an understandable and common situation with many senior citizens), you will need to make clear from the very first that the objective of the entire process is to sell the home and move out of it.

* More than 8 million homes face foreclosure in next 4 years – finance.yahoo.com
12/09/2008 More than 8 million mortgages could go into foreclosure in coming years in the wake of the credit meltdown as the economy worsens and the U.S. suffers more job losses, according to a recent report. Credit Suisse's fixed-income research team forecast that 8.1 million mortgages will be in foreclosure over the next four years, representing 16% of all mortgages. In a recent research note, Credit Suisse lifted its earlier forecast from April when it predicted 6.5 million foreclosures, or 13% of all mortgages.

* Half of 'rescued' borrowers still default – money.cnn.com
12/09/2008 Many modified mortgages in 2008 defaulted in 6 months, a top federal regulator says. A new study raises concerns over the quality of such loan adjustments.

* Internal Warnings Sounded on Loans At Fannie, Freddie – Washington Post
12/09/2008 Internal Freddie Mac documents show that senior executives at the company were warned years ago that they were offering mortgages that could pose dangers to the firm, hurt borrowers and generate more risky loans throughout the industry. At Fannie Mae, top executives were told it was necessary to develop "underground" efforts to buy subprime mortgages because of competitive pressures, although there were growing risks and borrowers often didn't understand the terms of the loans, documents show.

* Modifying the Mortgage Giants – Washington Post
12/08/2008 Fannie, Freddie Tilt From Profit Goals Toward Public Mission to Buoy Market. After the government announced last month that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would take new steps to modify tens of thousands of mortgages to make them more affordable, some executives expressed concerns that the moves could weaken their already struggling companies.

* Legacy of tainted home loans: vacancy, vandalism, foreclosure – Miami Herald
12/07/2008 Hundreds of MiamiDade homes financed by a now imprisoned lender have gone into the foreclosure process, and many are blighted.

* Home seizures sharply higher: Foreclosures in Florida worsened in the third quarter – Miami Herald
12/06/2008 A weakening Florida economy helped push 90,000 more homes into foreclosure in the third quarter, amid mounting job losses and falling home prices, according to an industry report released Friday.

* Long-Term Numbers Tell a Different Story – Washington Post
12/06/2008 While on a national basis homeowners have lost more than $1 trillion in equity since the end of the boom, the overwhelming majority of markets continue to show net cumulative value growth over the past 60 months. According to the third-quarter survey released Nov. 25 by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, out of 292 metropolitan markets, 273 showed positive net home values over the course of the previous five years, while 19 were negative. Nationally, the survey found prices down 4 percent over the year, but still up almost 29 percent over five years.

* Capital workshop offers hope to harried homeowners – Sacramento Bee
12/05/2008 Margarita McWhorter of Antelope came into the Sacramento Convention Center angry and frustrated Thursday, wanting to cry while talking about her mortgage troubles.

* Bernanke calls for more help to fix home mortgage crisis – Sacramento Bee
12/05/2008 Adding to a mounting chorus in the nation's capital that the Bush administration must do more to reverse the nationwide housing slump, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday spelled out several aggressive steps that government could take to fix the main cause of the recession.

* Capital One buying Chevy Chase Bank for $520M – San Francisco Chronicle
12/04/2008 Capital One Financial Corp. said Thursday it will acquire Chevy Chase Bank for $520 million in cash and stock, as it continues to bolster its deposit base to help fund operations amid the ongoing credit crisis.

* Lower mortgage rates no silver bullet – money.cnn.com
12/04/2008 The government is weighing plans to drive rates as low as 4.5%. But experts say that won't be enough to stabilize the housing market.

* 6.8% of loans in region 3 months in arrears – Sacramento Bee
12/04/2008 Nearly 7 percent of residential mortgages in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties were three months or more behind on payments in October, First American CoreLogic reported Tuesday.

* Home loan fraud still rising – Miami Herald
12/03/2008 Even though it is now much harder to get a home loan in South Florida, mortgage fraud continued to flourish in the second quarter of this year, an industry group reported Tuesday. Florida led the nation.

* Low rates breathe life into mortgage market – Columbus Dispatch
12/03/2008 A recent half-percentage-point drop in 30-year home loans is jolting a mortgage market that has been weighed down by a nose-diving economy and troubled credit markets. Mortgage applications were up 112 percent during the week that ended Nov. 28, which included Thanksgiving, compared with the week before, according to a survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

* Free forum offers help to homeowners facing foreclosure – Sacramento Bee
12/02/2008 Nine months after its first sweep through California offering alternatives to foreclosure, the national lender coalition Hope Now is back with a foreclosure-prevention workshop in Sacramento on Thursday.

* Protesters Call for Affordable Housing: Hundreds in City Said to Need Help – Washington Post
12/02/2008 More than a hundred people gathered in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's local field office on First Street NE yesterday in recognition of World AIDS Day and to protest a lack of affordable housing for District residents living with HIV and AIDS.

* Buying as much as the banks allow – Sarasota Herald-Tribune
12/01/2008 Sarasota, FL real estate investor Arguelles and his wife, who have shelled out $1.61 million to buy 19 houses in Sarasota and Manatee counties since June 2007, say they would buy hundreds more if lenders would pony up the money.

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* Properties late on taxes on the rise – Myrtle Beach Sun News 11/30/2008 Anyone hoping to snag a bargain on local real estate will have a longer list than usual to choose from at Horry County's property auction Monday as more property owners than usual struggle to pay their property taxes. Tax sales are held annually, and the number of properties with unpaid taxes has nearly quadrupled this year from the 500 or so usually on the list, said Crystal Montgomery, the county's delinquent tax manager. As of last week, 1,900 delinquent properties were on this year's list.
* Readers Shine Light on Credit Crunch, Real Estate Woes – Washington Post 11/30/2008 My inbox is overstuffed with comments and suggestions from readers.
* Lawsuit Paints Loan Crisis In Black, White and Brown – Washington Post 11/29/2008 In what appears to be the first legal action of its kind, an association of community-based organizations has filed a federal civil rights complaint against two of the three largest Wall Street ratings agencies, charging that their inflated ratings on subprime mortgage bonds disproportionately caused financial harm to African American and Latino home buyers.
* Home Front: Improvement seen in foreclosure picture – Sacramento Bee 11/28/2008 Is the foreclosure phenomenon at last beginning to peak in California?
* Spain: Developer seeks protection from creditors – San Francisco Chronicle 11/28/2008 The crash in Spain's real estate market claimed another big victim Friday as Promociones Habitat, a major developer, filed for protection from creditors holding euro2.3 billion ($3 billion) in debt. The Barcelona-based company said it continues to operate as usual and will try to finish the projects it has under way, but has no choice but to seek court protection as it tries to restructure its debt load.
* Commercial Mortgage Crisis Set To Explode – Tampa Tribune 11/28/2008 The full scope of the housing meltdown isn't clear and already there are ominous signs of a new crisis, one that could shutter malls, hotels and storefronts nationwide. Even as the holiday shopping season begins in full swing, the same events poisoning the housing market are at work on commercial properties, and the bad news is trickling in. Malls from Michigan to Georgia are entering foreclosure. Hotels in Tucson, Ariz., and Hilton Head, S.C., are about to default on their mortgages.
* Obama Works on Economic Plan; Volcker Tapped for Advisory Role – Wall Street Journal 11/27/2008 President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday declined to directly criticize the Bush administration's handling of the economic crisis, but said he is frustrated with stagnant wage growth and the government's failure to tackle long-term challenges like health care and energy. He appointed former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker on Wednesday to be the chairman of a new White House advisory board.
* Feds vow billions more to aid credit – Denver Post 11/26/2008 Rolling out powerful new weapons against the financial meltdown, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve pledged $800 billion Tuesday to blast through blockades on credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and other borrowing. Total bailout commitments, loans and pledges of backing neared a staggering $7 trillion.
* Trying to end the mortgage-rate lag – money.cnn.com 11/26/2008 A slew of dour economic reports make safe Treasury bonds the asset of choice for conservative investors, but lowering home lending rates is another matter.
* Timeshare fees spent on politics, audit shows – Miami Herald 11/25/2008 Timeshare owners in Florida and elsewhere were misled into donating to the political fundraising arm of the U.S. vacation ownership industry while paying their regular property fees, according to a new federal audit report. Tens of thousands of small contributions -- most $3 to $5 -- were collected by property management firms around the country and funneled to a political action committee set up by the American Resort Development Association.
* Fed says it will buy mortgage-related assets – biz.yahoo.com 11/25/2008 The Federal Reserve said Tuesday it will buy up to $600 billion in mortgage-backed assets in another attempt to deal with the financial crisis.
* Home prices in record decline – money.cnn.com 11/25/2008 Case-Shiller survey shows 16.6% annual decline in summer months as housing picture continues to deteriorate.
* Web sites rank real-estate pros – Columbus Dispatch 11/24/2008 Sites such as HomeGain.com, AgentRank.com and IncredibleAgents.com function as repositories of agent profile pages. They make money from ads or, in some cases, by selling the contact information of potential customers who visited the site. Their rating schemes vary widely, and lack of active participation by agents can affect the quality of their results.
* Children Who Live in Public Housing Suffer in School, Study Says – New York Times 11/23/2008 New York City children who live in public housing perform worse in school than students who live in other types of housing, according to a study by New York University researchers.
* A net for at-risk homeowners – Miami Herald 11/23/2008 You may have seen headlines about the latest public and private efforts to help financially distressed homeowners cope with their mortgage payments. But you might not have caught key details that could have an impact on you or people you know -- now or in the recession months ahead.
* Hard-Money Lenders' Day Has Come; They May Be Last Recourse for Borrowers – Washington Post 11/22/2008 As in all disasters, there are people who will profit from the financial crisis. Among them are hard-money lenders, those who lend solely on the basis of collateral.
* Keys Now, Sale Later: With Credit Tight, Buyers, Sellers Rediscover Renting to Own – Washington Post 11/22/2008 Renting to own, also known as renting with an option to buy or a lease-purchase agreement, had practically vanished during the days of easy money. Now real estate professionals say the practice is reappearing as sellers grow increasingly desperate and buyers with damaged credit scores find it harder to secure mortgages.
* Design Within Reach, A budget-minded family builds a tower and transforms a standard suburban home – Wall Street Journal 11/21/2008 A budget-minded family builds a tower and transforms a standard suburban home.
* Housing Bets Attract Little Action – Washington Post 11/21/2008 Housing futures have drawn interest from "a variety of commercial and non-commercial traders, including housing developers, mortgage lenders, hedge funds and even individual homeowners," said Michael Shore, a spokesman for CME Group, parent company of the Chicago exchange. "Both retail and institutional participants have access to the product. However, for the most part, futures markets tend to attract more institutional investors."
* Only One Person Knows a Home's Value: Its Buyer – Wall Street Journal 11/20/2008 House-Price Index Readings Can Be Inflated, Built on Shaky Foundations, and Not Even in the Right Neighborhood.
* No job, bad mortgage - out of luck – money.cnn.com 11/20/2008 All the foreclosure prevention plans announced to date will do little to help the next wave of delinquent homeowners, who can't make their monthly payments because they've lost their jobs. But something needs to be done for them, experts said, or the country will sink deeper into an economic recession.
* Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac halting foreclosures – biz.yahoo.com 11/20/2008 Mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are suspending foreclosures for about 16,000 households during the holiday season.
* Educated Homeowners Surviving Housing Crisis – realestate.yahoo.com 11/19/2008 It's up to you to learn what you are getting into before you embark on what's likely the most valuable acquisition you'll ever complete. It's no surprise new mortgage modification programs, foreclosure assistance and bankruptcy laws come with mandated homeownership counseling.
* Is Deflation Good for Workers? – Business Week 11/19/2008 A key underlying cause of the financial crisis was a fall in real wages. A bit of deflation may be just what consumers need
* SoCal median home prices fall 33 percent, sales soar 67 percent in October – San Jose Mercury News 11/18/2008 San Diego-based MDA DataQuick says the median price for homes and condos tumbled to $300,000 last month from $445,000 in October 2007. There were 21,532 homes and condos sold in Southern California last month, up 67 percent from the year-ago period.
* Apartments finally going up over 'the hole on Cole' – Dallas Morning News 11/18/2008 One of the most storied properties in Dallas real estate is at last being developed after more than a 20-year wait.
* Changing real estate market prompts creative ways to buy and sell – Providence Journal 11/16/2008 As Rhode Island’s house prices fall to their lowest level in five years, people are finding their dream houses on the market for tens of thousands of dollars less than they were just a year ago. But as they go searching for mortgages, they’re also finding that the skittish banking industry is far more selective about who they loan money to, scrutinizing borrowers’ finances more closely than years past. Still, if you make the grade, you can make out.
* Maybe There Is an Upside to This Mess – Wall Street Journal 11/16/2008 The market has tumbled, the financial system is wobbling, and global economies likely are in a deep downturn. But one big positive has emerged: The plunge in prices of all kinds of commodities, from oil and natural gas to steel and copper.
* Real Estate Close-Up: Houston – Miami Herald 11/14/2008 While the rest of the country withered under $4 a gallon gas, Houston and its commercial real estate market thrived. Thanks to an economy heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry, the city's office and industrial market posted strong rental and low vacancy figures through the third quarter. But the choke hold on credit markets, a limping economy and falling oil prices could seep into Houston's seemingly resilient market.
* How Much Home You Can Buy for $500,000 – finance.yahoo.com 11/13/2008 For many people who once only dreamed of a $1 million home, today a $500,000 home is looking pretty good.
* Foreclosure rates up 25 percent year-over-year – biz.yahoo.com 11/13/2008 The number of homeowners caught in the wave of foreclosures in October grew 25 percent nationally over the same month in 2007, data released Thursday showed. More than 279,500 U.S. homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice in October, an increase of 5 percent over September.
* Water customers facing rate gusher – Columbus Dispatch 11/13/2008 Ohio American Water customers in Franklin County will see a big jump in their water bills soon. Yesterday, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved an average rate increase of 30 percent for water and almost 37 percent for sewer service for customers in Franklin and Portage counties.
* Real estate investors snap up deals – Fresno Bee 11/13/2008 Lower price ranges see the biggest impact as investors grab bank-owned homes. After a two-year absence, real estate investors, reacting to falling prices and an abundance of supply, are back in the marketplace at the levels they were before the crash.
* New Mortages Rules Aimed at Consumer – Wall Street Journal 11/12/2008 The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to announce Wednesday morning its final version of new rules designed to help Americans shop for mortgages more effectively. The rules update requirements of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, known as Respa, a 1974 law that sets federal rules for home-purchase transactions.
* Federal program will offer mortgage help to many – Columbus Dispatch 11/11/2008 A far-reaching plan was announced today to assist homeowners by speeding up the process to modify delinquent loans held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee nearly 31 million U.S. mortgages, or nearly six of every 10 outstanding.
* A Retreat From Retail, Consumer Slowdown Dashes Big Plans – Washington Post 11/10/2008 The slowdown in consumer spending, along with the housing meltdown and credit crunch, are putting the brakes on retail expansion projects in the region, which had been one of the hottest commercial real estate markets in the nation. Developers here and across the country are postponing, scaling back and even canceling retail projects.
* Obama wants to limit foreclosures - but how? – San Francisco Chronicle 11/09/2008 On the campaign trail, the president-elect proposed a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures, giving Bankruptcy Court judges the right to modify mortgages on primary residences, a $10 billion foreclosure-prevention fund and a mortgage tax credit of up to $800 a year for homeowners who don't itemize their deductions.
* Charlotte-area lot prices latest to take hit in real estate – Charlotte Observer 11/09/2008 The crippled Charlotte-area real estate market is feeling a new pain: Sales prices of home-building lots have taken a double-digit dive.
* City stuck with lots that were to be developed – Columbus Dispatch 11/09/2008 Like a banker holding foreclosed properties in marginal neighborhoods, Columbus is saddled with trying to sell lots in depressed areas to recoup the millions in loans it provided to buy the land.
* New real estate brokerage bucking trend opening offices – Palm Beach Post 11/09/2008 Start a real estate brokerage in a recession? That's like going for a nice sail in a hurricane.
* How do you make an open house stand out? – Washington Post 11/08/2008 Sometimes agents go to extremes, but the glitz doesn't always help.
* September pending home sales fall – money.cnn.com 11/07/2008 The Pending Home Sales Index for the month fell 4.6% to 89.2 after climbing 7.4% in August, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Still, the index was up 1.6% from a year ago.
* Mounting job losses fueling foreclosures – money.cnn.com 11/07/2008 As the economy tanks, unemployment is the major factor driving a much larger proportion of foreclosures now than in the earlier stages of the mortgage meltdown. In June, 45.5% of all delinquencies reported by Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) were due to unemployment or the loss of income, according to the company. That's an increase from 36.3% in 2006.