BusinessWeek Online - In response to perilously lax lending standards and a proliferation of risky new mortgages, bank regulators issued new guidelines on Sept. 29 to protect American home buyers. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), along with the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and other bank agencies, now requires more stringent underwriting standards and more informational sales practices surrounding nontraditional mortgages, such as interest-only mortgages and "payment option" adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). ... Read more…

Reuters - Pending sales of U.S. homes rose 4.3 percent in August in a sign the nation's housing market might be stabilizing, a trade association said on Monday. Read more…

Reuters - U.S. manufacturing growth eased in September to its slowest in more than a year, but home sales and construction figures suggested a less abrupt decline in the housing sector than many experts had foreseen. Read more…

The Motley Fool - While apartment and office-space rentals have been the center of attention from a big summer for real estate investment trusts, health care REITs have also continued to experience steady gains. Ventas (NYSE: VTR - News) has emerged as one of the heavy hitters in the sector, turning in impressive earnings and enriching its shareholders with a 4.1% dividend yield. With a market capitalization of just more than $4 billion, the company finances, owns, and leases health care-related and senior housing facilities in 42 states. Read more…

BusinessWeek Online - Is the Japanese property market's rebound the real deal? Plenty of investors seem to think so, given the robust performance of Nomura Real Estate Holdings on its Oct. 3 trading debut at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The stock price of the former unit of Japanese securities colossus Nomura Holdings shot up 18% in its first day of trading to $35 a share after the company recently raised about $1.2 billion in the biggest initial public offering in Japan this year. It now boasts a market capitalization of roughly $4 billion. Read more…

AFP - Citigroup is looking at acquiring banks outside the United States in an effort to reduce its dependence on its home market, the group's Chief Executive Charles Prince said in an interview published in the Financial Times. Read more…

The Motley Fool - You might think it's a crime that your local bank is paying you 0.6% interest on your checking account, while charging you 8% interest on a home equity loan, but compared to some things that some banks have apparently been doing, it's not so unseemly. Read more…

Reuters - Host Hotels & Resorts Inc. , the largest U.S. hotel real estate investment trust, on Wednesday said third-quarter funds from operations more than doubled, helped by an increase in room rates and a recent acquisition. Read more…

Reuters - U.S. home sales for the year will be weaker and price appreciation will be smaller than previously forecast, a realtors group said on Wednesday. Read more…

AP - Rates on 30-year mortgages, after having fallen to a seven-month low, rose this week for the first time in five weeks. Read more…

AP - The go-go days for home prices are over, but Mike Pietrafesa thinks it is still tough for people to buy their first slice of the American dream. Read more…

AP - Realtors in five states agreed to allow discount brokers full access to their online multiple listing services as part of a landmark settlement with federal regulators announced Thursday. Read more…

AP - The founder and former chief executive of online real estate listings company Homestore Inc. was sentenced Thursday to a 15-year prison term and ordered to pay a $5 million fine for his part in a scheme to defraud investors. Read more…

The Motley Fool - Within the broader mortgage categories of fixed and adjustable-rate, there are plenty of other variations, such as COFI, hybrid, and balloon loans, several of which combine aspects of the two main types. Let's take a look. Read more…

AP - In an Oct. 12 story about a former Army Corps of Engineers employee convicted of taking almost $50,000 from a Kuwaiti real estate agent, The Associated Press erroneously described the plea agreement by Gheevarghese Pappen. He pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gratuities, not bribery. Read more…

Reuters - Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week, pulled down by a drop in refinancings as interest rates rose for the third straight week, an industry group's data showed on Wednesday. Read more…

The Motley Fool - The title of this article is more ominous than its content. I don't expect you to have to decide whether you want to own a home or retire comfortably. I think you can have both -- if you plan well. But I recently ran across some interesting information about how you might want to spend your extra dollars. Read more…

Pity the poor, modern-day Jed Clampett, exchanging the simple and inexpensive life of the Ozarks for the glitz, glamor - and prices - of Beverly Hills. A typical middle-class house in the Southern California city now costs more than 10 times what a similar place sells for near Clampett's old stomping grounds, Fort Smith, Ark. Read more…

Home price increases have slowed nationwide and even reversed in many markets. Inventories are up and new home builders are cutting back. More and more sellers are having difficulty selling their properties. Read more…

There wasn't just a boom in real estate over the past decade - there was also a big boom in real estate agents. Read more…

The housing market will get worse before it gets better - that's the finding of an analysis by Moody's Economy.com. Read more…

Manhattan real estate prices fell from the second to the third quarter in 2006, but were still up from the same period last year, according to two reports released Wednesday. Read more…

The housing market will get worse before it gets better - that's the finding of an analysis by Moody's Economy.com to be released Wednesday. Read more…

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Mortgage rates headed back up after many weeks of declines, according to a survey released Thursday. Read more…