NEW YORK (Reuters) - Officials at luxury-home builder Toll Brothers Inc. have agreed to pay $16.2 million to settle claims that they misled shareholders about the company's future prospects while reaping $615 million from sales of the company's stock.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With little to show after a month of posturing, the White House and Republicans in Congress dropped hints on Thursday that they had resumed low-level private talks on breaking the stalemate over the "fiscal cliff" but refused to divulge details.

As part of a national rush to capitalize on rising rents, new apartment complexes are being built at the fastest pace since 2008.

Press Release

Portland Region October Home Sales Portland-area October home sales rose sharply from a year earlier in October, with condo resales hitting a seven-year high. The median price paid for all homes sold in the five-county region rose year-over-year for the eighth consecutive month as move-up activity increased and foreclosure resales declined, a real estate information service reported. A total of 2,898 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow during October in the five-county Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton metro area. Sales rose 9.4 percent from the prior month and rose 35.5 percent from a year earlier, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records. On average, sales between September and October have dipped 1.4 percent since 1994, when DataQuick's complete Portland-area statistics begin. October's sales tally was the highest for that month in three years, but remained low in a historical context, falling nearly 18 percent short of the average sales total for all months of October since 1994. While sales of existing (not new) single-family detached houses and newly built homes were the highest for an October since 2009, condo resales were the highest for an October since 2005. Like many other Western metro areas, the Portland region has seen a significant drop in lower-cost sales over the past year and a jump in mid- to high-end deals. October sales below $100,000 fell 19.6 percent year-over-year, while sub-$150,000 deals declined 5.2 percent. However, sales between $200,000 and $600,000 (a typical move-up range) jumped 57.5 percent from a year earlier, while sales over $500,000 rose 35.5 percent. Looked at different, this October sales over $200,000 made up 61.6 percent of total sales, compared with 53.5 percent in October 2011. The Portland metro area statistics in this report and in the table below reflect sales in Clackamas, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties in Oregon and Clark...

We are responsible for ensuring "fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to credit" under the Dodd-Frank Act. Today, we submitted a report to Congress on our efforts to fulfill this fair lending mandate. The CFPB has made great strides on this front over the past year, and the Fair Lending Report of the Consumer Financial Protection [...]

December 6, 2012: Remarks of Edward J. DeMarco, Acting Director, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Before SIFMA, New York, New York, "Building a Mortgage Infrastructure for the Future"

"If the mortgage interest deduction is eliminated due to the fiscal cliff quagmire, it would give many underwater and otherwise distressed homeowners one less reason to hang on to their homes," says this expert.

MCLEAN, Va., Dec. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing fixed mortgage rates little changed and remain...

The wiggle-room in the fiscal cliff negotiations between President Obama and Republican leaders comes down to a balanced approach on raising tax rates for wealthier Americans and broadening the tax base by closing loopholes and deductions, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers says.

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan will head to Capitol Hill on Thursday to talk about a different sort of fiscal cliff: the one potentially facing the Federal Housing Administration. Read full article >>

EU President Calls for Central Fund to Wind Down Failing Banks Bloomberg European leaders proposed an industry-financed fund to cover costs of winding down failing euro-area banks, seeking to deepen the bloc's integration and limit fallout from future financial crises. Nations in the currency bloc should back the creation of a ...

Short Sales of Homes Surge as Tax Break to Expire: Mortgages Businessweek Homeowners and banks are accelerating sales of properties for less than the amount owed as a U.S. law that gives them a tax break expires at the end of the year. The transactions, known as short sales, increased by 35 percent in the third quarter from a year ...

"I didn't think this was case three weeks ago but do now think [President] Obama has decided to drive the country over the fiscal cliff and blame the Republicans," says Norquist.