Housing Market, Foreclosure | featured news

Stockton, the California city with the nation's second-highest foreclosure rate, is facing a moment of decision on whether to become the biggest city to file for bankruptcy, as a deadline for talks between the city and its creditors approached late Monday.

For homeowners trying to get reparations in the wake of the foreclosure crisis, it's been a hit-or-miss experience. This week, another group of Americans bruised in the housing bust will get payouts from the banks, money meant to help them get on their feet again, but the cash may prove disappointing for many.

Lenders initiated foreclosure proceedings against more U.S. homeowners in May, setting the stage for increases in home repossessions and short sales - scenarios that could further weigh down home values in coming months....

With each passing month, the foreclosure crisis continues to slowly burn. The Obama Administration keeps splashing water on it—massive remodifications, mortgage settlement cash, rental programs—hoping something will stick. On Friday, here at the Clinton Global Initiative, in Chicago, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and FHA Commissioner Carol Galante announced yet another: a program to pool together mortgage loans on the brink of default, and save them.

On a suburban block with six family homes, palm trees and views of the surrounding green hills, nothing at 110 Windsor Court stood out. Its occupants, who had moved into the foreclosed house a few years earlier, were quiet types. Until the noise from falling roof tiles alerted neighbors to a fire there one recent morning, and Stephen Snowden, who lived nearby, banged on the front door. Nobody was inside, but firefighters discovered that the house had been converted into a type of illegal business found increasingly in suburbia: a marijuana grow house.

New data show price declines easing in big cities, sales of new homes improving nationally and foreclosures in California dropping to levels not seen since 2007. The housing market's long, cold winter may finally be heading into a springtime thaw.

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.

Bank of America Corp. is launching a pilot program that will allow homeowners at risk of foreclosure to hand over deeds to their houses and sign leases that will let them rent the houses back from the bank at a market rate.

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.

Renters are paying more because the foreclosure crisis is adding to their ranks, which increases demand for apartments.