Housing Market, Real Estate | featured news

An 80-story skyscraper under construction at ground zero will have to stop at seven stories unless the developer can line up more tenants, planners said Monday, adding to problems that have plagued the $11.7 billion World Trade Center project.

Fixed mortgage rates in the U.S. touched historic lows over the past week, with the 30-year home loan returning to its record trough of 3.94%, amid troubling reports on the state of the housing market.

The economy seems to have picked up in the second half of the year. But apparently no one told the housing market. Home prices continued to fall in October, even as sales of existing homes picked up and homebuilders applied for more permits. After stabilizing this summer, prices fell at a 7.5 percent annual rate in the three months ending in October, according to the latest data from CoreLogic, a real estate research firm.

Massachusetts' top lawmaker has sued five top U.S. banks for allegedly foreclosing illegally on homes in the state and for deceptive loan servicing, including robo-signing.

The Federal Housing Administration's cash reserves have dropped so low that there is a close to a 50 percent chance it could run out of funds and may require a taxpayer bailout next year, the Wall Street Journal said, citing an annual independent audit of the agency's finances.

For the second time in history—and the second time in as many months—average rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell below 4%.

The new law announced Thursday is the most significant market reform yet approved by the government of Raúl Castro, and one that will likely reshape Cuba’s cities and conceptions of class.

"It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress," said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at an event for business leaders.

New single-family home sales rose at their fastest pace in five months in September, a government report showed on Wednesday, but sustained price declines indicated the housing market is far from recovery.

The closely watched Case-Shiller index of home prices in American cities rose slightly in August from the prior month. Prices of previously owned single-family homes rose 0.2% in August over July and, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 metropolitan areas. The index dropped 3.8% from the same month a year prior.