Real Estate: Real Estate Industry
Thornburg Mortgage creditors agree to one-year breather
Thornburg Mortgage Inc.'s five largest creditors have agreed to give the "super jumbo" lender a one-year reprieve from margin calls if it can raise nearly $1 billion in seven business days. Thornburg is offering 12 percent interest to anybody willing to buy notes that will mature on April 1, 2015. The notes would be convertible into common stock at 75 percents per share, the lender said in a regulatory filing. more...read more Read more…
Connecticut statewide MLS launches public site
A statewide multiple listing service in Connecticut this week launched a public property-search site that features about 31,000 property listings. CTreal.com features interactive mapping for home searches including a drawing tool called "Sherpa" that allows users to define a specific home-search area on its Google-based mapping platform. more... read more Read more…
Zillow lands first MLS deal
Seattle-based Zillow.com scored its first partnership with a multiple listing service to feed for-sale property information to the national real estate site. MLS Property Information Network, a privately owned MLS serving the New England area, will begin feeding listings to Zillow on a daily basis, the companies announced today. MLS PIN has about 30,000 participants, and the organization manages a database of approximately 60,000 homes for sale. more...read more Read more…
Regulators relax capital requirements for Fannie, Freddie
Federal regulators say they're giving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac additional leeway to buy up to $200 billion in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities by relaxing stringent capital requirements put in place in 2004 in the wake of management and accounting scandals. more...read more Read more…
California sees dwindling home sales, prices
Although February home sales across Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area picked up from January, they posted huge declines from a year ago and median prices tumbled. According to real estate information service DataQuick, home sales last month in the six-county Southern California region limped along at the slowest pace ever for a February -- with just 10,777 new and resale houses and condos changing hands. That's a 39 percent decrease from the 17,680 sales reported in February 2007, but an 8 percent jump from 9,983 sales in January 2008. more...read more Read more…
Home loan apps fall in weekly survey
Despite a considerable drop in long-term mortgage rates, borrowers last week were not breaking down the doors of lenders trying to get a piece of the action, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today. According to MBA, home loan application volume fell 2.9 percent last week on a seasonally adjusted basis from the previous week, led by a 4.6 percent decline in the refinance index and a 1 percent drop in the index that tracks purchase loans. more...read more Read more…
Overnight real estate rates sink further
Long-term mortgage interest rates continued to fall Tuesday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield climbed to 3.49 percent. The 30-year fixed-rate average dropped to 5.66 percent, and the 15-year fixed rate fell to 5.04 percent. The 1-year adjustable rate, however, rose to 5.34 percent. The 30-year Treasury bond yield increased to 4.35 percent. Rates and bonds are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. more...read more Read more…
Cleveland sues subprime lenders
Likening their actions to those of organized crime syndicates, Cleveland's Mayor is suing 21 major banks and mortgage companies for the roles they played in the sub-prime mortgage crisis that devastated many neighborhoods in the city. Read more…
Housing: No room for bulls
Even a few months ago, it seemed like a good idea to hold a debate between real estate bulls and bears. Read more…
Mortgage applications up last week
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