Economy, Housing Market | featured news

The International Monetary Fund lowered its estimates for economic growth for 2012 and 2013, and urged policy makers to do more to help the housing sector in the United States.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria says improvement in the U.S. housing sector might give the rest of the economy a little hope.

Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes matched a two-year high in May, fueling optimism the housing market is poised for a recovery.

New single-family home sales surged in May to a one-year high and prices rose from a year ago amid tightening supply, further signs the housing market was gaining some momentum.

home resales fell in May and the median sales price rose only because of a drop in sale of lower priced homes, casting a shadow on the country's nascent housing market recovery.

U.S. builders started work on more single-family homes in May and requested the most permits to build homes and apartments in three and a half years. The increase suggests the housing market is slowly recovering even as other areas of the economy have weakened.

Home resales rose in April to their highest annual rate in nearly two years and a falloff in foreclosures pushed prices higher, hopeful signs for the country's economic recovery.

When it comes to the economic recovery, timing is everything — and so far, it’s been off. Take the market performance of housing and autos, two big-ticket purchases that traditionally have moved in tandem. But new data released this week showed housing prices and new home sales dropping off at the same time that auto sales were peaking.

The relentless decline in home prices is nearing an end and prices should rise for the first time in seven years in 2013, but a possible new wave of foreclosures could threaten the recovery, according a Reuters poll of economists.

Half a decade into the deepest U.S. housing crisis since the 1930s, many Americans are hoping the crisis is finally nearing its end. House sales are picking up across most of the country, the plunge in prices is slowing and attempts by lenders to claim back properties from struggling borrowers dropped by more than a third in 2011, hitting a four-year low.