News

Washington, DC - November 17, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The latest independent audit of the Federal Housing Administration shows the agency’s financial condition has improved from last year, when it announced its capital reserve fund had fallen below the 2 percent level mandated by Congress. The annual audit shows that the capital ratio for the single-family portfolio rose from 0.42 percent to 0.79 percent over the past year.

Washington, DC - November 17, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Although the recent trend of rising long-term borrowing rates may mean higher mortgages for consumers in the coming months, the greater obstacles to housing market recovery are job creation and availability of credit, according to a National Association of REALTORS® analysis.

Chicago, IL - November 17, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Today, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and Bank of America announced the ten recipients of the Affordable Green Neighborhoods Grant Program. Funded by a $500,000 grant from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, the program awards financial and educational resources to help neighborhood projects that have affordable green housing components in their plans pursue LEED for Neighborhood Development. LEED for Neighborhood Development is a green rating system from USGBC that certifies whole neighborhoods, portions of neighborhoods or multiple neighborhoods. The selected development projects were announced at the Affordable Housing Summit at USGBC’s Greenbuild International Conference & Expo

WASHINGTON, DC - November 17, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Today Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) held an oversight hearing investigating problems in the mortgage servicing industry. The Committee heard testimony from state officials, industry executives, and experts in law and consumer protection, and explored how mortgage servicing practices may have prevented modifications and even resulted in unjustifiable foreclosures.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 16, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Agriculture Under Secretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager today invited non-profit groups and public entities to apply for loans to rehabilitate multi-family housing in rural areas.

LITTLE ROCK, AR - November 16, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Attorney General Dustin McDaniel today announced that he has joined a multistate review into possibly improper practices within the mortgage service industry.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - November 16, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Conducted quarterly since 1972, MBA's National Delinquency Survey covers more than 40 million loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties, representing more than 80 percent of all first-lien residential mortgage loans outstanding in the United States.

FAYETTEVILLE, AR - November 16, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- A $55,000 Affordable Housing Program (AHP) grant from Bank of the Ozarks and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) will assist the Fayetteville Housing Authority with much needed repairs to apartments for very low-income residents.

Forecasting the Upstate's real estate market is best determined by local data that focuses on the supply of houses that are entering the market. Real estate is local -- meaning there is no such thing as a national real estate market.

The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is a flexible program that provides communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs. Beginning in 1974, the CDBG program is one of the longest continuously run programs at HUD. The CDBG program provides annual grants on a formula basis to 1180 general units of local government and States.

If you’ve got a Web site, you’ve likely spent time and money trying to drive more traffic to your site. Maybe you’ve tried different strategies for search engine optimization, which typically focus on clever use of keywords to increase the chances your site will place high in search results.

The House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would help protect insurance markets in disaster-prone states from suffering devastating losses in the event of a catastrophic natural disaster.

On November 26, 2007, Global Property Showcase (GPS) will kick off a new exposition dedicated to bridging the gap between worldwide developers and consumers looking to purchase quality and amenity-rich real estate. This multi-city program will educate investors, 2nd-home buyers and property seekers to the various locales being represented with each global project, and of course, showcase each development in depth. Significant discounts will be given to those in attendance. The showcase is designed to engage (an expected 1,000 attendees in total) and provide guests with valuable insights and opportunities that serve to enhance their property portfolios.

Using the multi-level marketing techniques made popular by Amway, Nouveau Riche University is selling real estate investment classes and a host of related products and services to would-be tycoons.

WASHINGTON, DC — With Countrywide Financial Corp. increasingly turning to the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) system for cash advances to stay afloat as other liquidity sources shun the company, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) urged the overseer of the federally-supported bank network to probe the underlying risk of Countrywide’s collateral and to issue new, system-wide regulations to reduce the banks’ exposure to risky or predatory loans.

Washington, DC, November 29, 2007 – For the first time in nearly thirteen years, U.S. home prices experienced a quarterly decline. The OFHEO House Price Index (HPI), which is based on data from sales and refinance transactions, was 0.4 percent lower in the third quarter than in the second quarter of 2007.

Detroit, MI – The U.S. Conference of Mayors unveiled today an economic impact report on the foreclosure crisis that forecasts sharp losses in the growth of gross domestic product and projects economic output losses for 361 metro areas -- referred to as gross metropolitan product (GMP).

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 28, 2007 The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 23, 2007. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 652.5, a decrease of 4.3 percent on a seasonally and holiday adjusted basis from 681.7 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 25.5 percent compared with the previous week reflecting the Thanksgiving holiday on November 22 and was up 24.6 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

WASHINGTON, November 28, 2007 - Single-family existing-home sales were stable in October while the condo sector was down, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Lingering effects of the credit crunch were a drag on sales but the mortgage situation has improved significantly

Miami Beach, FL (PRWEB) November 26, 2007 -- Eighty percent of people across the country who bought a new home last year used the Internet while house hunting, and they rated photographs as the most useful tool in their search, according to a survey of buyers and sellers by the National Association of Realtors. Since property photos are meant to be a sales tool, Fizber.com,