The real estate market and particularly home selling prices have been all over the news in the past week as three major organizations released their latest reports on the market.

Case-Shiller was the first, trumpeting that the home price decline is slowing.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency came next announcing that the “pace of decline lessens considerably.”

This was followed by the National Association of Realtors report that said home sales increased in April. All of this prompted the National Association for Business Economics to state that “there are emerging signs that the economy is stabilizing” and a survey of their members found that they expect the recession to end soon and they are predicting a rise in the GDP in the second half of the year.

* Full story available on The Coloradoan

Alfred Patterson Jr., the former mortgage broker now leading County Corp’s outreach efforts to stem home foreclosures, is battling to keep financially overstretched homeowners safely under their roofs.

Everybody loses when a home is foreclosed, Patterson notes: the homeowner, the bank or lender, the neighborhood that ends up with a vacant house in it, the tax collector, and the community.

The mortgage crisis is so deep that Aaron Sorrell, manager of Housing and Neighborhood Development for the city of Dayton, equates it with the Great Flood of 1913 in the way it is remaking the cityscape.

* Full story available on The Dayton Daily News

Buy, buy, buy, is the mantra of Realtors and mortgage brokers across the country. With housing prices stalled, or worse, falling in many regions, how will individuals be able to purchase if money for a down payment is an issue?

To help offset this problem the federal government is trying to push-start housing sales by broadening the use of the housing credit.

The federal stimulus package allows a maximum $8,000 tax credit, which can be used up front for a down payment for first-time homebuyers who purchase a home through November 2009.

* Full story available on The Walton Sun

Now, mortgage modifications can include second mortgages not just first mortgages. What’s more, cash incentives are sweetening short-sale deals, both thanks to new efforts by the Obama Administration.

The new efforts give some homeowners a second shot at a home-saving loan modification, especially if they were originally turned down or turned off because the second mortgage (piggy-back, home equity loan or line of credit, etc.) impeded the process.

* Full story available on The Californian

Often when real-estate agent Karen Fick is showing a house, the prospective buyers will spot another home for sale down the street and wonder about that one. Can they afford it? How many bedrooms does it have? Could it be the one?

As an agent with access to Realtor listings, Fick can call up the information on her cell phone.

But with the growth of software and Web sites that enable mobile-device searches of listings and neighborhoods, both agents and consumers increasingly will be doing instant home searches on the go, according to industry experts.

* Full story available on The Statesman

The rate of foreclosures hit a record high in the first quarter, a fact the Mortgage Bankers Association said is “sobering, but not unexpected.”

Foreclosure actions were initiated on 1.37 percent of first mortgages during the first quarter, while the delinquency rate jumped to a seasonally adjusted 9.12 percent, up from 7.88 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the industry group.

Four states – Florida, Arizona, California and Nevada – drove up the national numbers, accounting for about 46 percent of the foreclosure starts in the U.S., and representing 56 percent of the increase in foreclosure starts, according to the MBA.

* Full story available on The Bizjournals

Yields on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage bonds tumbled, pushing down interest rates on new home loans after a climb earlier this week that added to signs the housing market and economy may not soon recover.

Yields on Washington-based Fannie Mae’s current-coupon 30- year fixed-rate mortgage securities declined 0.23 percentage point today to 4.33 percent as of 4:30 p.m. in New York, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Even with today’s drop the yield is up from 3.94 percent on May 20. Increases this week, spurred in part by a jump in Treasury yields, at one point were as big as any since 1984 in percentage terms.

* Ful story available on The Bloomberg

Lenders looking to quickly unload distressed properties are increasingly cutting costs by hiring real estate agents instead of licensed appraisers to value property.

The agents, who often have a stake in selling the property, give low-ball price estimates that artificially push down values, some industry experts say.

Broker price opinions, or BPOs, are performed by real estate agents who, unlike licensed appraisers, have no regulatory oversight of their valuations. BPOs are attractive for lenders because they cost between $40 and $65, compared with about $350 for an appraisal. Critics say the agents are swayed by a desire to collect a commission for selling the home later.

* Full story available on The Tampa Bay Online

Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan announced details Friday on a plan to allow some first-time home buyers to get upfront cash for a down payment on a house through the government’s new tax credit for new home buyers.

But the Housing and Urban Development Department acknowledged the program will help just “thousands” of borrowers, mainly lower-income families that insure their first mortgages though the Federal Housing Administration.

* Full story available on The Fox Business

More homeowners than ever before are falling behind on mortgage payments and sliding into foreclosure, according to figures released Thursday, a sign that the housing crisis is spreading through the ranks of previously stable borrowers.

About 5.4 million of the country’s 45 million home loans were delinquent or in some stage of the foreclosure process in the first three months of the year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. About 12.07 percent of all mortgages were delinquent or in foreclosure, up from 11.93 percent at the end of 2008.

* Full story available on The NY Times