Category Archives: Other

In Chicago, lenders are required to maintain vacant homes in foreclosure, such as by keeping lawns mowed and tidy and attending to maintenance issues inside. Lenders found in violation can face daily fines up to $1,000. But the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is suing the city of Chicago for its new ordinance, saying the city is overstepping its authority with the mandate. FHFA, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, says the ordinance is unfair because it “imposes all the costs of home ownership without any of the benefits, […]

Bank of America (BAC: 5.45 -4.72%) is looking at a new program to rent a home back to the borrower after foreclosure. “There are programs that we are quite interested in,” said Ron Sturzenegger, who leads the bank’s legacy asset servicing division, in an interview with HousingWire. “We are talking with investors that would come in and buy these houses and would lease them back to who would now be the now tenant.” In February, BofA formed the division to handle the servicing for delinquent mortgages, loans no longer being […]

More cities were added to this month’s Improving Markets Index, which was created earlier this year by the National Association of Home Builders and First American. The index identifies cities that are showing improvement in housing permits, employment, and home prices for at least six consecutive months. The latest index results is “very much in keeping with the latest government housing data and our own builder surveys, which have shown modest signs of improvement in certain individual markets where employment is gaining and distressed properties are not as numerous,” NAHB […]

If walls could talk, the ones in this 50s-era home would probably be slurring from all the highballs. Frank Sinatra rented it in his Rat Pack heyday and sublet the guest house to Marilyn Monroe. It was the site of her last photo shoot and allegedly where she met the 35th president for an affair. If it looks familiar, it may be because you watch TV or movies. It’s been a set in “Dreamgirls,” Usher’s “Burn” video and “Mad Men,” among many others. The latter makes perfect sense since  the […]

Four years after the housing bust, researchers at theFederal Reserve Bank of New York are putting some of the blame on real estate speculators, saying they played a key role in blowing up the housing bubble that eventually popped, causing home prices to tumble nationwide. In a report titled  “Flip This House: Investor Speculation and the Housing Bubble,” four researchers claim borrowerswho owned multiple homes for investment purposes played a key role in running up national home values right before the 2007 housing meltdown. In fact, the report found a third of […]

Heading into 2012, Florida Realtors say the Sunshine State is already in a mini-recovery with sales trending up and inventories starting to fall. The association of state real estate agents concluded during its 2012 Real Estate Economic Forecast Conference Tuesday in Orlando that Midwesterners wanting homes in Florida will be able to find deals throughout next year. Florida Realtors Chief Economist Dr. John Tuccillo said real estate agents are starting to see multiple offers on Florida homes. Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo, who spoke at the event, said […]

Occupy Wall Street and other housing activists are heading to neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosure Tuesday to protest the mistreatment of homeowners by mortgage lenders. Occupy Our Homes said it has scheduled a day of protests, with events scheduled in 25 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities. Among the actions expected to occur is so-called foreclosure defense, where protestors try to stop police from evicting residents of homes that are being foreclosed upon. Protestors also plan to occupy homes that have already been foreclosed on and […]

More “accidental” landlords are surfacing as home owners turn their underwater homes into rentals to try to come up with some extra cash. But some of these accidental landlords are still unable to keep up with their mortgage payments and may become delinquent on their mortgage. So what’s this mean for the person renting their property? Some renters may suddenly be served with an eviction notice when they discover the property they are renting is being foreclosed upon, and only having days to vacate. One new Web site, CheckYourLandlord.com, allows […]

The number of improving housing markets expanded for a fourth consecutive month, according to the National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving Markets Index. The number of improving housing markets rose 37% to 41 in December from 30 in November. The new list features 20 new markets, including several major markets such as Washington, San Jose, Calif. and Toledo, Ohio. Nine smaller markets dropped of the list mainly because of softer house prices. The widening in both number and geographic diversity of markets is further evidence that housing markets are […]

Barclays Capital (BCS: 11.92 +0.51%) analyst Stephen Kim predicts a housing recovery buoyed by improving jobs numbers and the fact prices for nondistressed homes will have stabilized without government support. “In the absence of a government homebuyer incentives, prices for non-distressed home sales have stabilized for almost a year,” Kim said. “This is the most important trend in the housing industry right now, and we are amazed at how little attention it has been getting from the media and the street. This stability on the part of nondistressed prices has […]