Mortgage, Real Estate | featured news

Bank of America Corp has started negotiating with powerful mortgage investors that accused the bank of failing to buy back bad home loans, in an apparent shift in the lender's stance.

The percentage of U.S. consumers who are delinquent on their mortgages could fall to about 5% by the end of 2011, from an expected 6.2% at the end of this year, according to a leading credit bureau. But it would still be well above historical levels.

Mortgage rates jumped dramatically this week amid a sell-off of all kinds of bonds, according to data released Thursday.

The housing and mortgage markets aren't likely to improve much over the next year, which will make it harder for the government to reduce its support of the sector, Freddie Mac's chief executive said on Monday.

That figure, projected through 2013, represents a worst-case scenario that assumes a double-dip recession, the Federal Housing Finance Agency says. The finance giants have so far received about $148 billion in taxpayer funds.

A six-month decline in mortgage rates has spurred a surge in refinancing while doing little to increase property demand as US unemployment hovers near 10 percent.

Officials in 49 states have launched a joint investigation into allegations that mortgage companies mishandled documents and broke laws in foreclosing on hundreds of thousands of homeowners.

Bank of America, the country's largest mortgage lender by assets, said on Friday that it was reviewing documents in all of its pending foreclosure cases to evaluate if there were errors made.

Federal Housing Finance Agency is seeking billions in repayment from banks that sold bad loans to the mortgage giants to help offset taxpayer losses, but some financial institutions are balking.

Lenders took back more homes in August than in any month since the start of the U.S. mortgage crisis.