REAL ESTATE

The 10-year Treasury, the benchmark rate which mortgage rates are priced off, have risen significantly over the past month - from under 3 percent and now closely approaching 4 percent. Mortgage rates will follow similar patterns and could soon top 5.5 percent on a conforming 30-year fixed rate on average.

Did You Know: Commercial Real Estate Market Survey

Fitch Ratings on Monday said it expects to keep its top rating on the most senior commercial mortgage-backed securities for the

Nearly one in four U.S. homes for sale on June 1 had their prices sliced at least once since landing on the market, data compiled by real estate website Trulia.com showed on Friday.

Deutsche Bank's (DBKGn.DE) Chief Executive Josef Ackermann said the global economic crisis was likely to persist and that a recovery depends on an improvement in the U.S. real estate market.

Interest rates on U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages surged 0.38 percentage point in the latest week, reaching its highest level since the week ending Dec. 11, 2008, according to a survey released on Thursday by home funding company Freddie Mac (FRE.N).

Nine people have been indicted on charges of conspiring to defraud Washington Mutual Bank and DLJ Mortgage Capital Inc, a unit of Credit Suisse Group AG, in a $92 million mortgage fraud scheme, prosecutors said on Thursday.

The United States may have hit a bump on the road to economic recovery, according to data released on Wednesday, with half a million private sector jobs lost in May and mortgage applications falling last week in the face of rising interest rates.

U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday will open a debate that has stymied them for at least a decade: the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant housing finance agencies nearly felled by the credit crisis.

Pending sales of previously owned U.S. homes in April unexpectedly saw their biggest monthly gain in 7-1/2 years, a report from a trade group on Tuesday showed, buttressing views the U.S. recession was easing.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a flat open on Wall Street on Tuesday as investors awaited key housing data a day after the S&P 500 index jumped to its highest close in seven months.

U.S. construction spending unexpectedly posted its biggest increase in eight months in April, advancing for a second straight month as the private sector put money into both residential and nonresidential projects, according to a government report on Monday.

The Federal Reserve is studying significant moves in the U.S. government bond market last week that could have big implications for the central bank's strategy to combat the country's recession.

Defaults on privately insured U.S. mortgages fell to a six-month low in April, providing evidence that deterioration in the nation's housing market may be slowing.

David Sokol, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc's (BRKa.N) MidAmerican Energy Holdings and a contender to succeed Warren Buffett, warned that the U.S. housing market still has a ways to go before bottoming out.

Til Schuermann, VP of Financial Intermediation at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is testifying today on issues in Commercial Real Estate, and his prepared remarks essentially drown the prospect of green shoots in the context of CRE.

Freddie Mac (FRE.P) (FRE.N), the second-largest U.S. home funding company, on Thursday said its mortgage investment portfolio shrank by an annualized 50.9 percent rate in April, while delinquencies on loans it guarantees accelerated.

With first-time buyers continuing to influence the housing market, the National Association of Realtors released a report on Wednesday showing that existing home sales in the month of April increased by slightly more than economists had been expecting.

Sales of U.S. existing homes rose in April compared with the previous month, economists polled by Reuters forecast.

If there is one industry suited to embrace the online revolution, it’s real estate. After all, the Internet is all about bringing together people and information, making it easier for the right people to find the right information. Substitute the word “houses” for “information”, and you have real estate.

Iris Martin is not a banker, real estate lawyer or mortgage broker. She is a former psychotherapist specializing in transformative psychology.

A U.S. 25-city home price index is stabilizing this year after plunging through most of 2008, and home prices in some cities actually rose in March, according to Radar Logic, a real estate data and analytics company.

The value of good farmland in several U.S. Midwestern states fell by a

Small, nimble retailers are taking advantage of the recession and larger rivals' woes as they move into abandoned U.S. store fronts with short-term leases negotiated at a discount.

Freddie Mac investors have filed expanded court claims accusing the mortgage finance company and three former executives of committing fraud by misleading them about risky loan practices and manipulating financial results.

U.S. mortgage applications rose last week, reflecting an increase in demand for home refinancing loans as interest rates trekked lower, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

Whitney Tilson, the outspoken founder of hedge fund T2 Partners LLC, is girding for a deeper mortgage market meltdown after being singed in his first foray into the credit crisis' most toxic of securities -- subprime bonds.

The initial public offering of the financial instrument for betting on U.S. home prices has failed because its auction could not generate a balance of investor interest in the product's two linked trusts, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

U.S. mortgage rates fell in the latest week, trekking closer to a record low set last month. Interest rates on U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell to 4.82 percent for the week ending May 21, down from the previous week's 4.86 percent, according to a survey released on Thursday by home funding company Freddie Mac.