REAL ESTATE

Washington real estate web site Incolo.com tells investors how to overlook bank-owned properties that have cosmetic flaws. Doing so can mean big savings. By being willing to invest a small amount up-front, buyers can save as much as 20% on a home purchase.

U.S. mortgage applications fell for a second straight week, led by a plunge in demand for home refinancing loans as interest rates climbed, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

Striving to attain that perfect life, work balance? You're not alone, but if you live in Chicago you're more unlikely to find it with residents of the Windy City the most stressed in the United states.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is probing more than 100,000 doubtful claims of a tax credit meant for first-time home buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Tuesday.

New construction of U.S. homes rose less than expected in September as ground-breaking activity for multi-family dwellings fell sharply, highlighting the economy's uneven recovery path.

Real estate and banking industry trade groups urged the Obama administration on Monday to press to extend and expand a tax credit for first-time home buyers that they said is instrumental to stabilizing the fragile housing market.

Epic swindler Bernard Madoff's former beach home off the eastern-most point of New York's Long Island sold for $9.41 million, money that will go toward a fund for defrauded investors, the U.S. Marshals Service said on Friday.

There is something about coming to this sun-baked corner of California that feels like inspecting the scene of a crime.

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, a huge Manhattan apartment complex that became the largest residential deal in New York's history, could be headed for default as early as December, according to Trepp, a firm that tracks commercial mortgage securities.

U.S. homebuilders' bonds have surged on hopes the housing downturn has reached a bottom, however the debt's prices may reflect too much optimism over what is likely to be a long, slow recovery.

Lloyds Banking Group said it agreed to sell its loss-making Halifax estate agency business to LSL Property Services for 1 pound ($1.6) following a strategic review.

U.S. authorities charged 41 people in a suspected mortgage fraud scheme that cheated lenders out of more than $64 million on New York state properties, prosecutors said on Thursday.

U.S. mortgage rates rose for the first time in four weeks but remained below 5 percent, a key level that may spur home loan demand and help the hard-hit U.S. housing market recover.

One American industry is booming amid the slump and job losses: mortgage rescue scams that prey on homeowners in financial straits.

The seven-bedroom, three-bath house in this city's West Garfield Park neighborhood had once been someone's American Dream.

U.S. mortgage foreclosure filings fell for a second straight month in September, but remained near a record high, amid ongoing and sweeping efforts to keep borrowers in their homes, a report released on Thursday showed.

A nearly 10 percent drop in costs and higher-than-expected revenue helped Host Hotels & Resorts post third-quarter results that surpassed expectations, and its shares rose nearly 5 percent.

Many homeowners are turning into landlords -- reluctantly sometimes, when they have to move but cannot sell their homes.

Despite some signs that the worst of the U.S. residential housing crisis may be over, many wealthy homeowners are still being squeezed by the combination of weak home prices and the stock market crash.

The number of new apartments put up for sale in the Tokyo area rose 26.2 percent in September from a year earlier for the first rise in 25 months, a property market research firm said on Wednesday.

After a year most investors would like to forget, foreign real estate buyers are being swayed to spend again in New York City by a weak U.S. dollar and property prices at levels not seen for years, say experts.

Avid golfer Bob Cano came to the Arizona sunbelt to buy his dream getaway property and ended up picking up three more distressed homes as prices fell to half of 2006 levels.

U.S. mortgage applications dipped last week as interest rates on 30-year loans rose above 5 percent, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

Want a snapshot of the U.S. housing market? Check out a mortgage modification event -- the lending equivalent of speed dating.

Freddie Mac, a dominant provider of housing finance money, sees tough times ahead for the U.S. residential market, even as government programs seek to soften the foreclosure crisis, two top Freddie executives told Reuters.

Within weeks of taking office, U.S. President Barack Obama rode to the rescue of homeowners resigned to financial ruin.

Despite the recent market decline, Americans are still willing to borrow a large amount of money to buy a home because they are convinced that housing values will rise, writes Robert J. Shiller in his monthly New York Times column.

The Mortgage Bankers Association's second-quarter data book on commercial real estate showed an uptick in commercial loan originations. Yet high unemployment, coupled with disappointing gross domestic product and building transaction totals, tempered any enthusiasm.

On the surface, a glimmer of confidence is returning to the battered U.S. housing market, after more than three years of gut-wrenching defaults, price slumps and foreclosures.