Now that mortgage refinancing is popular again, one big concern is that there won't be enough money to keep up with the demand.

The title of this Outlook , “The Future of Investing,” is a theme that will take the evolving years to resolve, let alone the next few days.

The U.S. Justice Department urged Congress on Wednesday to require mortgage companies to retain records for 10 years to make it easier to prosecute fraud. Rita Glavin, acting head of the department's criminal division, told a hearing of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee that mortgage settlement statements and other loan documents are critical to investigating or prosecuting fraud.

Do you rent a house? Are you worried your landlord might be falling behind on payments? If you answered yes to the above questions, RealtyTrac’s new Renter Alerts might be just the thing for you. (Or you could just ask the owner if everything is “alright”). The foreclosure information provider today launched a new service that gives [...]

Colonial BancGroup Inc. said investors led by Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Co. have agreed to make a $300 million equity investment in the bank, just in time for Colonial to meet a deadline to qualify for $550 million in federal bailout funds.

Doom received the following question in our "Submit Ideas" box yesterday from " Inock ". The question was too good not to post: Why isn’t anyone talking about or investigating the fact that agents have solid executed offers on homes and lenders are refusing to accept the offers. The homes just become "bank owned" and list for a far lower purchase price than what licensed agents have had signed offers for! I am an agent in southern California and Countrywide bank just turned town a cash offer that is $200K over what the last model match in the neighborhood sold for! That is $200K that could offset other losses and limit taxpayer dollars. Once it goes bank owned, foreclosure costs add up, holding costs add up, and the market continues to decline - $300K? $400K? I am only 1 agent with 6-10 of the same examples - none of this hits the media! I am outraged! How many other agents have experienced this? Where is the media coverage?? Well Inock, we will do our best by covering it here. How about it agents- are any of you seeing the same thing?

There is a new twist in commercial real estate action today. Lenders are ignoring defaults of $billions on commercial real estate as if nothing happened, praying that credit conditions will improve. Please consider . General Growth Properties Inc., struggling under a mountain of debt, said Monday that its latest effort to win a reprieve from bondholders had fallen short. Under normal circumstances a company with as much past-due debt as General Growth would have been forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by now. Creditors so far have been willing to let deadlines pass because they believe there is little to be gained and much to be lost through a bankruptcy. "This is really rare," said Kevin Starke, an analyst at CRT Capital Group LLC, a research company that tracks distressed securities. "It is corporate-bond limbo like I've never seen before." Many creditors say that General Growth's management is doing a good job running the company. Its 200 U.S. malls, a portfolio second in size only to Simon Property Group Inc., generate enough cash to cover interest on the debt. But its properties are overleveraged and it lacks the borrowing capacity to retire those debts as their principal comes due. "There's no question that General Growth is a liquidity issue," said Jeff Spector, an analyst with UBS AG. "The properties, for the most part, aren't broken." My Comment : Jeff Spector, UBS AG analyst is dead wrong. This is not a liquidity issue. This is solvency issue. The properties are indeed broken. They are broken by debt. There is more debt on those properties than can possibly be paid back. No one will possibly buy them for the amount owed. And every day that passes the value of those commercial properties sinks. Bondholders are only delaying the inevitable. General Growth, based in Chicago, isn't the only real-estate borrower that is getting a reprieve from its lenders these days. Hundreds of property owners...

The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury recently addressed their joint role in preserving financial and monetary stability in the United States. In a late March statement, the agencies stressed the importance of maintaining the Fed's independence and their intention to gradually remove the central bank from programs that could jeopardize taxpayer money.