Housing Crisis, Housing Market | featured news

When we first met Lynn Szymoniak on 60 Minutes, she was losing her home. She blew the whistle on bank fraud, and now she's walking away with $18 million, read more about the illegal use of robosigning by banks.

Banks earned $13 billion in secret cut-rate loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis, Bloomberg reports... "Many Americans are struggling to understand why banks deserve such preferential treatment while millions of homeowners are being denied assistance and are at increasing risk of foreclosure," Cummings wrote in his letter.

The insurer AIG is suing Bank of America Corp to recover more than $10 billion of losses from a "massive fraud" on mortgage debt, deepening the morass of litigation faced by the largest U.S. bank.

It is far too easy to say that minorities have only themselves to blame for their wealth decline because they bought homes they couldn’t afford. That argument would let so many off the hook. It would excuse the government for its monumental failure to tame predatory lenders. And it would absolve the lenders who came up with exotic mortgages that should never have been pitched ubiquitously, especially not to financially fragile minority borrowers. But blaming the victim is what we do so well in America.

Housing starts posted their biggest decline in 27 years in February while building permits dropped to their lowest level on record, suggesting the beleaguered real estate sector has yet to rebound from its deepest slump in modern history.

The foreclosure crisis is getting worse as high unemployment and lackluster job prospects force homeowners in an increasing number of U.S. metropolitan areas into dire financial straits....

New data reveals home prices in America's biggest cities are on a downward trend that could last through next year — making it more likely the housing market will face another downturn and threaten the overall economy.Inflation Helps Boost Value of Tax DeductionsYOU DECIDE: Have You Saved Enough?

Congressional lawmakers scramble to come up with quick fix to the foreclosure fiasco that has threatened the economic recovery and thrown a monkey wrench into their re-election campaigns.Up to 40 States Plan Foreclosure Data Inquiry

The GOP gubernatorial candidate promises to cut spending and suggests that lower taxes and less regulation will spur business. But experts say the bleak economy is mostly due to the real estate crisis.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, in written testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on Tuesday, said his firm "certainly did not bet against our clients."