Housing Market | featured news

Housing construction fell in February as winter blizzards held down activity in the Northeast and Midwest. The decline highlighted the challenges facing builders as they struggle to emerge from the worst housing slump in decades.

More than 170,000 troubled homeowners are breathing a lasting sigh of relief now that they've received permanent modifications under the Obama administration's foreclosure prevention program.

Swelling ranks of homeowners who are seriously delinquent but haven't yet lost their homes may soon lead to a new round of foreclosures.

Only about a third of the homeowners who have successfully completed the trial period of the Obama administration's mortgage modification program have been offered permanent relief, according to new federal data obtained by the Huffington Post.

The conversion rate -- about 33 percent -- is woefully short of what the Treasury Department had forecast. Treasury thought the rate would be "ranging up to 75 percent," Herbert M. Allison Jr., assistant secretary for financial stability, told the Congressional Oversight Panel in October.

An emergency assistance program that saves thousands from foreclosure each year is in the national spotlight.

Report suggests demand for housing is sinking this winter, especially after stormy weather.

The latest effort to scale back some tax deductions on mortgage interest, one of the nation's most-enduring tax breaks, is finding little support in Congress.

Rates for 30-year home loans rose above the 5 percent threshold for the first time in three weeks, but remained near historically low levels....

The 11.2 percent plunge confounded forecasts as transactions were at an ebb unseen since record keeping began in 1963.

While the 20-city home price index rose 0.3 percent from November to December, the index was off 3.1 percent from December a year ago.