December 2007 - MND NewsWire

Sales of new single family houses dropped again in November according to a joint report issued Friday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Only in the West region were sales up from the previous month and then by a...

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index for October, released on Wednesday, fell again for what is the 10th consecutive month. The 6.7 percent drop from figures a year earlier was the largest recorded by the index since April, 1991 when prices declined 6.3 percent.

Miami was the biggest loser in the broad index with...

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced Monday that he was in favor of temporarily lifting the dollar limit on loans purchased by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, allowing them to provide a market for so-called "jumbo mortgages."

Such a change, Paulson said, may...

RealtyTrac, Inc., a company that tracks delinquencies and foreclosures was reporting Thursday that the number of foreclosure filings in November was 68 percent higher nationwide than those in November 2006.

Another major American financial institution went on the international auction block Wednesday afternoon as Morgan Stanley announced it was accepting a $5 billion cash infusion from China Investment in return for a stake in the bank estimated to be as high as 9.9 percent.

The Federal Reserve's Board of Governors is expected to endorse proposed rules developed by its staff for the banks it regulates that would end some of the more abusive lending practices aimed at subprime borrowers.

The rules which have been widely promoted by consumer advocacy groups for some time and already adopted in whole or in part by many state regulatory agencies would, if enacted, do the following:

The U.S. House Judiciary signed off on Wednesday on a bill designed to help certain bankrupt homeowners stay in those homes. The highly controversial bill is yet another piece in a crazy-quilt of government and mortgage industry attempts to curtail rising foreclosures and stem the collapse of lending and lenders.

The bill changes the creditor-friendly overhaul of the nation's bankruptcy code passed in 2005 allowing bankruptcy courts to change the terms of some existing mortgages to the benefit of the homeowners.

Late Monday, after the market closed of course, Washington Mutual announced that, in an attempt to raise cash, it will conduct a $2.5 billion convertible preferred stock offering. It will also close 190 of its 336 loan centers and sales offices, lay off more than 3,000 employees and set aside up to $1.6 billion for loan losses in the fourth quarter.

The company also announced that it was...