Home Sales Rise Unexpectedly but Prices Keep Tumbling
WASHINGTON (AP) — After falling for six straight months, sales of existing homes posted an unexpected increase in February which may have reflected more aggressive price cutting by sellers in some parts of the country, a real estate trade group reported.
The National Association of Realtors said that sales […]

Read full story

President Resists Wide-Scale Assistance
Now that the Federal Reserve has pledged billions of dollars to rescue Wall Street bankers from possible default, lawmakers and regulators are turning their attention to helping average citizens — from homeowners in danger of foreclosure to people who want to buy a home.
But unlike the Fed’s rapid moves last week to […]

Read full story

Torrid population growth rates in Sun Belt metropolitan areas from Florida to Arizona, Nevada and California have slowed amid a severe downturn in the nation’s housing market, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Census Bureau data released today.
“It’s really a slowdown in places with superheated housing markets that were almost out of control in […]

Read full story

The peach-colored house in a modest subdivision near downtown Modesto, Calif., used to be someone’s dream home. But it stands out in a row of similarly hued homes where many have a “For Sale” sign planted in their front yards. The two-story appears battered: its address has been scratched on a front panel and weeds […]

Read full story

FEAR is ruling the financial markets. Billions of dollars have been lost in mortgage-related investments. The Federal Reserve worked madly over the weekend to engineer a takeover of Bear Stearns and avert a systemic meltdown. But the big fear remains. How low will house prices go?
If prices continue to fall, mortgage defaults will move well […]

Read full story

WHAT image does the term “lowballer” conjure up for you? A smirking bottom feeder in a bad suit? A fast-talking investor working the phone?
How about a couple of young newlyweds who have saved their wedding cash to put toward their first home?
James and Valentina Sbarra fit the last description, and they are relieved to be […]

Read full story

Souring Economy Spreads Its Tentacles, Causing Business Insolvencies to Rise
As the housing and credit markets continue to spiral downward, business casualties are rising rapidly in bankruptcy courts across the Washington region.
The number of corporations that have filed for Chapter 11 protection to reorganize so far this year in Maryland, Eastern Virginia and the District has […]

Read full story

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Subprime mortgage write-downs could reach $285 billion but an end to the write-downs is now in sight for large financial institutions, Standard & Poor’s said in a report on Thursday.
The rating agency said some subprime mortgage write-downs are larger than any reasonable estimate of actual losses. It […]

Read full story

The U.S. Treasury is set to release a report today on what went wrong in the collapse of the subprime mortgage market last year and provide initial indications of how the country’s financial regulatory framework should be revamped, according to sources familiar with the announcement.
The report, which is the result of a seven-month effort […]

Read full story

The mortgage foreclosure crisis has caused a drop in cities’ revenues, a spike in crime, more homelessness and an increase in vacant properties, a survey of elected local officials out today shows.
About two-thirds of 211 officials surveyed by the National League of Cities reported an increase in foreclosures in their cities in the past year, […]

Read full story