Many Americans See Economy Improving, but Not for Them
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AMERICANS are becoming more optimistic about the prospects for the economy, but are still concerned about their own financial situation.

Healing a Wounded Credit Score
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Whatever the reason, the rising number of foreclosures, short sales, late credit card payments and the ultimate credit sin — bankruptcies — have left black marks on credit reports most everywhere. So what can these people do to repair their credit?

TARP Watchdog Says Foreclosure Plan Is Failing
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Foreclosures in the U.S. matched their highest level on record at the end of 2010, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. And that's frustrating to one of the nation's top financial watchdogs.

Mortgage Delinquencies Decline
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The number of U.S. households behind on mortgage payments fell in the fourth quarter to the lowest level in two years, but the number of loans in foreclosure remained high.

Long After Fall, Countrywide’s Mozilo Defended His Legacy
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More than two years after Countrywide Financial nearly collapsed under the weight of souring subprime home loans, Angelo R. Mozilo passionately defended the mortgage lender that he founded before a government panel.

Fed Chief Says U.S. Bolstered Its Ability to Handle Failure of a Big Bank
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The chairman of the Federal Reserve said on Thursday that banking regulators would be better able to deal with the failure of a large bank today than they were two years ago, thanks in part to the Dodd-Frank Act, which overhauled financial regulation after the crisis of 2007-8.

Looks Like Banks Lose on Risk Plea
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When the mortgage securitization market collapsed amid a flood of defaults and foreclosures — many of them on loans that should not have been made — the cry arose for lenders to have “skin in the game.” To properly align incentives, the argument went, those who make loans must suffer if the loan goes bad.

Risk of foreclosure dips, but remains elevated
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Fewer Americans fell behind on their mortgage payments in the final three months of last year, but foreclosures are still rising.

Banks to be sanctioned for foreclosure violations
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Major U.S. banks are about to get penalized for “critical deficiencies” and shortcomings in how they handled foreclosures, a top federal regulator said Thursday.

Louisville home sales drop 6 percent in January
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Members of the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors sold 657 houses and condos in January, a 6 percent drop from a year earlier. The median sales price fell to $125,000 from $130,000 a year ago.

CB Richard Ellis to Buy ING Real Estate Business
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The ING Group said Tuesday that it would sell most of its real estate investment management business for more than $1 billion in two separate deals and use the proceeds to repay state aid it received during the financial crisis.

Legal Fees at Fannie Are Called Avoidable
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When the government took over Fannie Mae, it could have voided the contracts that have since left taxpayers liable for more than $100 million in legal bills defending the mortgage company and its former executives, according to statements at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.

New York Courts Vow Legal Aid in Housing
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Criminal defendants are guaranteed a lawyer, but New York will be the first state to try to extend that pledge to foreclosures, which are civil matters. There are about 80,000 active foreclosure cases in New York courts. In more than half of them, only the banks have lawyers.

Homebuilders have grim view of housing market
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The National Association of Home Builders said Tuesday that its index of builder sentiment for February remained unchanged for the fourth straight month at 16. Any reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the market. The index hasn't been above that level since April 2006.

Researcher studies foreclosures' impact on children
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An Indiana University researcher is joining cohorts from three other universities in a study that will look at why children's grades often suffer when their families lose their homes to foreclosure.

11,956 vacant homes
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Numbers reflect troubled times, but housing officials have hope

The Great Customer Courtship
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Historically low interest rates, tough new capital requirements and heightened competition from brokerage firms are prompting banks to dangle juicy incentives to depositors.

Homeowners consider walking away from mortgage
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In a recent national study, almost half of homeowners said they would consider walking away if their mortgages surpassed the value of their homes.

Lending to blacks, Hispanics plummets during housing crisis
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Since the housing market collapsed, mortgage lending to African Americans and Hispanics has plunged precipitously — by more than 60 percent, according to a new study of loan information that banks submit to the federal government.

Housing Crash Is Hitting Cities Once Thought to Be Stable
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The rolling real estate crash that ravaged Florida and the Southwest is delivering a new wave of distress to communities once thought to be immune — economically diversified cities where the boom was relatively restrained.

Mortgage Interest Tax Break No Longer Sacred?
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The tax break puts money into the pockets of millions of American homeowners. Getting rid of it has been politically unthinkable. But a growing number of economists and a deficit-cutting commission are telling Congress the time has come to phase out this sacred tax break for homeowners.

Mortgage Rates Reach 10-month High
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The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 21 basis points this week, to 5.23 percent, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders.

Mortgages: Calculating the Annual Percentage Rate
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THE lending industry has tried to make it easier for borrowers to understand the true cost of a mortgage by disclosing both its interest rate and its annual percentage rate, or A.P.R. But consumers may often wonder which figure they should focus on when buying or refinancing a property.

Imagining Life Without Fannie and Freddie
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The report, entitled “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market,” zeros in on the perverse incentives created by the nation’s mortgage complex during the years leading up to the panic of 2008. The Treasury’s recommendation that we wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and let the private mortgage market step in is spot on.