MORTGAGE

Global sales of investment grade real estate plunged 73 percent to $47 billion in the first quarter from a year ago, or just one-sixth of the level two years ago, according to real estate research firm Real Capital Analytics on Friday.

In recent months the availability of jumbo loans has decreased while the interest rate spread between jumbo rates and ten-year treasuries has widened. These developments are having a negative effect on the housing market.

California's housing-market slump showed hints of improvement in March, with sales of existing single-family homes increasing 64% from the prior-year period and median home prices rising month-to-month for the first time since August 2007, according to a trade group report.

The U.S. Treasury Department will on Tuesday tap a $50 billion housing rescue fund to pay off mortgage investors and reduce monthly payments for millions of borrowers, said a senior administration official.

The head of a U.S. financial bailout watchdog panel said bankruptcy judges must be allowed to reduce home mortgage debt or the Obama administration's housing rescue efforts could fail in the areas where they are most needed.

California's Riverside County has been one of the most punished areas in the U.S. housing crash and now local leaders are among the first in the nation with a program to buy foreclosed homes and sell them back to young families.

Early signs of a decent spring selling season in the U.S. housing market, as mortgage rates hit near-record lows, have been snuffed out by the latest round of dismal data.

Manhattan office tower bought by property investor Harry Macklowe for $498 million nearly three years ago was taken over on Wednesday by one of its lenders, which made the only bid at an auction -- for $100,000.

The Treasury Department is considering giving banks and investors billions of dollars in fresh incentives to modify troubled mortgages and save homeowners from foreclosure, sources familiar with official deliberations said.

The Treasury Department is considering giving banks and investors billions of dollars in fresh incentives to modify troubled mortgages and save homeowners from foreclosure, sources familiar with official deliberations said.

The Treasury Department is considering giving banks and investors billions of dollars in fresh incentives to modify troubled mortgages and save homeowners from foreclosure, sources familiar with official deliberations said.

Investors have hired attorneys to argue that large banks have a conflict of interest as mortgage servicers and holders of second liens, as a government plan to give servicers the power to rework the troubled loans has raised concerns.

GMAC LLC, the General Motors Corp financing affiliate that received a government bailout, said its mortgage unit is hiring 1,000 people to handle a surge in refinancings and jumbo loans.

Six large U.S. banks could pocket nearly $10 billion in federal subsidies if they modify troubled home loans and are able to save homeowners from foreclosure, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

One in every eight U.S. households, a record share, ended 2008 behind on their mortgage payments or in the foreclosure process as job losses intensified a housing crisis spawned by lax lending practices, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Thursday.

Unemployment is a bigger reason for missed mortgage payments than high interest rates, according to a study from the Boston Federal Reserve that raises questions about President Barack Obama's plan to stem foreclosures by modifying loans.

More than 58 percent of U.S. home loans modified in 2008 did not result in a decreased monthly payment, and those modifications often did not produce sustainable mortgages, according to a report released on Friday.

Defaults on privately insured U.S. mortgages fell nearly 16 percent in February from the month before but were still half again higher than a year earlier.

U.S. mortgage applications jumped last week as record low interest rates spurred a surge in demand for home refinancing loans, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

U.S. mortgage applications jumped last week as record low interest rates spurred a surge in demand for home refinancing loans, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

General Growth Properties Inc remained in talks on Sunday with bondholders it was trying to persuade to accept reduced terms, The Wall Street Journal reported.