A lawsuit filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan against mega-bank Wells Fargo got the green light today from a state court judge. The suit, which was originally filed in the summer of 2009, alleges that Wells Fargo engaged

During the boom years, bigger and better was the mantra for everyone in the housing market, most of all developers. “McMansions,” as they were called, sprang up in suburbs across the country, and everybody seemed to have the financing

Seeking to debunk the conventional wisdom on detached homes, a new piece by Wendell Cox of New Geography, citing data from the 2010 American Community Survey, throws down the gauntlet on detached housing, claiming the housing type is not

Allied Home Mortgage Corporation and its CEO James Hodge were suspended today for fraudulent lending practices that cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is considering debarring Hodge and

According to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, construction spending rose for the second straight month, in increasing 0.2 percent from August to September to a seasonally adjusted rate of $787.2 billion. Though the spending was 1.3 percent

As legislators keep looking for ways to increase the efficacy of housing policy, some of the research will be shared at tomorrow’s How Housing Matters Conference in Washington,

The delinquency rates at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the GSEs that control more than half of the country’s mortgages, moved in opposite directions in September, with Fannie’s rate declining and Freddie’s increasing, according to a post by Calculated

What is the typical rate of appreciation for home values? What does an appraisal do? What about an inspection? And is PMI always necessary? Those and other questions were featured on a recent survey by Zillow, the popular MLS

Though credit unions and small community banks had little to no impact on the global financial crisis of 2008, representatives from the two banking sectors stated before the House Financial Services Committee today say that a maze of new

Broad legislation stemming from 2010’s “robo signing” foreclosure scandal may lead to the first case of mortgage write-downs since the housing market declined in 2008. According to a report from Reuters, negotiations between state attorneys general, federal regulators and

The housing market is a grand, influential sector of the global economy, one that ebbs and flows with overall economic performance. But even though the message remains consistent – fix housing, fix the economy – very few of the

Redfin, the online real estate brokerage based in Seattle, has raised $14.8 million this venture round, led by new investor Globespan Capital Partners. That brings the virtual brokerage’s total financing to roughly $46

David Woolley, a California licensed land surveyor and certified fraud examiner, is leading a new study in tandem with the Harbinger Analytics Group Real Estate Fraud Experts on the recently disbanded company, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS).  The topic

The Troubled Asset Relief  Program, or TARP, was a $750 billion infusion of cash into the U.S. financial sector, namely to banks addled by derivatives and other financial products. The largest recipients of TARP – Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Wells

What good are low mortgage rates if nobody can take advantage of them? That’s the main question of a recent piece by Derek Kravitz, an Associated Press economics writer. Though rates are at historical lows, underwater homeowners – a quarter

Though the Pending Home Sales Index declined in September,  activity remains above a year ago, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). A forward-looking indicator that is based on contract signings, the index fell 4.6 percent