Freddie Mac, Bank Bailout | featured news

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.

The total taxpayer bill for both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is now about $136 billion.

House lawmakers hold their first hearing about how to restructure the mortgage system.

Sixteen months after they were seized to prevent collapse, companies remain wards of the state, running a tab that has now exceeded $125 billion.

Freddie Mac's losses narrowed to $6.3 billion in the third quarter, but the government-controlled mortgage finance company didn't ...

Freddie Mac reported a surprising profit in the second quarter, but the profit turned to a loss for shareholders after the company paid the U.S. government a $1.1 billion dividend.

The FBI is looking into a report that Freddie Mac improperly deferred billions of dollars of losses incurred from 2001 through 2004.

Freddie Mac, facing mounting damage from the U.S. housing crisis, said Wednesday it will ask the government for nearly $31 billion in additional aid after posting a gargantuan loss of more than $50 billion last year.

The $700 billion financial-sector bailout is likely to rely on a broad range of tools, from injecting additional capital into banks and helping homeowners avoid foreclosure to expanding the roles of the Fed, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FDIC.