by Karen Lawson
May 6th, 2010
Shrinking FHA capital reserves were recently addressed by the House Financial Services Committee; Representatives were faced with balancing the FHA’s significant role in providing mortgage loans for first time and moderate income homebuyers with the need to increase the agency’s reserves to legally mandated levels. FHA reserves have fallen to approximately .53% of the value of FHA insured mortgage loans, well below the legally mandated level of 2%.
By Les Christie, staff writer
May 4, 2010: 10:21 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Fannie Mae, the government-backed mortgage giant, announced Friday that it would tighten lending requirements for the interest-only loans and adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) it backs.
To get a Fannie Mae-backed interest-only mortgage, for example, homebuyers will have to make down payments of 30% of the sale price.
The (sickly) return of housing
By Shawn Tully, senior editor-at-large
April 26, 2010: 1:46 PM ET
(Fortune) -- For the most accurate, up-to-date view of where America's housing market stands today, the best source is Mike Castleman. This tall, lean Texan rancher who fits the Hollywood image of a retired bronco buster is the founder of Metrostudy, a firm that dispatches researchers to inspect 4.5 million building lots every ninety days in the busiest cities for homebuilding, from Washington, D.C., to Chicago to Phoenix to Sacramento.
Foreclosure map: See the worst hit metro areas
April 29, 2010: 12:07 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Foreclosure filings declined in more than half of the country's top 20 worst-hit cities, most of which are concentrated in the Sunbelt "bubble" states of California, Arizona, Florida and Nevada. But those improvements bucked the market's general trend: Nationwide, foreclosures rose 16% during the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009.
Foreclosure is hitting well-off families, too
Posted by Lisa Gibbs
May 4, 2010 9:57 am
Who is falling into foreclosure? The Florida Association of Realtors wanted to find out, so it commissioned an analysis that cross-referenced three years of foreclosure filings with demographic data. The study focused only on primary residences; the idea was to ignore investors and speculators, looking instead at people who'd bought homes to live in themselves.
The best outdoor jobs to tackle now
By Josh Garskof, Money Magazine contributing writer
May 3, 2010: 4:41 AM ET
(Money Magazine) -- You probably know that boosting your home's curb appeal is one of the most important ways to maximize its value. But that doesn't mean you need to take on a pricey job like replacing the windows or installing a blue-stone walk. In fact, you'll probably get a bigger bang for your buck with upkeep that costs a few hundred dollars at most -- like touching up the paint, mulching planting beds, and staining fences and decks. "A lot of buyers expect to invest in big projects to customize the house, but no one wants to deal with deferred maintenance," says Rick Wohlfarth, a realtor in Cundy's Harbor, Maine.
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