They say that AG doesn’t stand for attorney general — it stands for “aspiring governor.” In California, the saying certainly seems true for current Attorney General Kamela Harris, who has been carving out a name for herself by pursuing banks over their bubble-era lending practices. …read more

Profits at the nation’s FDIC-insured banks took a dip during the most recent third quarter — the first decline since 2009 — as mortgage lending faltered due to higher rates. Originations dropped 30% in Q3. …read more

That talk about the JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) settlement being the end of the road? Think again. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s said today that they expect U.S. Banks will have to pay between $56.5 billion and up to $104 billion to put their legacy mortgage issues behind them. …read more

Despite a recent recovery in housing, new trouble in the U.S. mortgage market may be just over the horizon. Reuters reports on looming problems with bubble-era home equity lines of credit. …read more

Mortgage rates marginally climbed heading into the holiday season, canceling out much of last week’s drop amid recently mixed housing reports. …read more

The big apple — if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. At least that’s the old saying, but new data suggests that moving to lesser-known communities with cheaper home values may be a better option for financially strapped Americans. …read more

By Mandelman This is the story of Dumb and Dumber… The list of private-equity firms that over this past year have been rushing to get a stake in the supposedly red hot single-family home market include: Colony Capital LLC, Oaktree Capital Group LLC, KKR & Co., GTIS Partners and Och-Ziff Capital Management LLC, and Waypoint […]

Beer Entrepreneurs Fuel Comeback Of Struggling Cleveland NeighborhoodForbesGreat Lakes has grown by spreading its distribution across the Midwest, but McNulty has gone with a hyperlocal approach. It’s part restaurant-brewery business, part real–estate play. He and his business partner Andy Tveekrem, a former brewer at Great … …read more

Janet Yellen’s 2014 Nightmare; “Cornering” the Treasury MarketForbesIf anything will derail the economy, force the stock market into a mighty retreat and destroy all hope of further expansion of the residential real estate market, it is the Fed’s quandry over the retreat from quantitative easing. And you can be sure … and more …read more

Key housing data had very little impact on the HW 30 Tuesday, with building permits remaining the outlier. …read more

The Sacramento area ranked as the 16th speediest home-selling area in among 23 major U.S. metropolitan markets monitored in October by Redfin, the Seattle-based online real estate brokerage. …read more

With 2014 right around the corner, the housing market will have to embrace a lot more than just an onslaught of new housing regulations, with Freddie Mac predicting that rates will likely touch 5% by the end of the new year. …read more

Artis Real Estate Investment Trust’s Preferred Units, Series C, Cross 6% Yield …ForbesIn trading on Tuesday, shares of Artis Real Estate Investment Trust’s Preferred Units, Series C (Toronto: AX-PRE) were yielding above the 6% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $1.1875), with shares changing hands as low as $19.57 on … and more […]

After much debate, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced that the 2014 conforming loan limit for mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will remain at $417,000 for one-unit properties in most areas of the country, which will likely remain despite leadership changes. …read more

High School Teacher Turned Multi-Millionaire: It Works!ForbesPentecost filled the void investing in commercial real estate. “I thought I was going to be the Donald Trump of Grand Rapids.” But the pull of direct sales persisted and he searched for something to sell that could provide the foundation for a new company. …read more

The housing market digested several key housing reports this week, all of which showed gains and losses across the board. As home prices continued to grow, mortgage rates dipped slightly and building permits hit their highest level in five years. …read more

The latest ad campaign from Century 21 may begin and end with their brand, but there’s no a single mention of the real estate franchise throughout this unorthodox Thanksgiving ad. …read more

Don’t let the decline in banks’ net income fool you. The news from the third quarter was mostly positive. …read more

By Ryan Lundquist I’m not trying to be THAT guy by starting a business conversation during Thanksgiving, but this is important. Did you know the deadline to appeal property taxes in Sacramento County is on Monday? Since December 2, 2013 is the cutoff point, I’ve boiled down the process to three steps of what you […]

A few years back, buyers with less-than-pristine credit or little downpayments for a mortgage had only one viable route: the Federal Housing Administration, which offered cheap loans with little downpayments required. That was then. This is now, and now is a world where private MI is making a serious comeback. …read more

The U.S. government wants to add Wells Fargo (WFC) Vice President Kurt Lofrano personally to its lawsuit involving claims that the bank defrauded the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — saying the executive played a “critical role” in Wells Fargo’s decision to hide fraudulent loans from the government agency. …read more

The Intelligencer (blog)Despite the nationwide increase, home sales continued to decrease on an annual basis for the third consecutive month in three bellwether western states: California (down 15 from a year ago), Arizona (down 13 percent), and Nevada (down 5 percent). The …Foreclosure Auction Sales and Bank-Owned Sales Increase From Year Ago in …SYS-CON Media […]

The debate over eminent domain as a tool to sieze underwater mortgages from banks and trusts rages on, and has gone from city to city as local municipalities grapple with ways to help build or restore their tax base help homeowners. The latest city being pushed to consider the use of the controversial tactic is […]

US House Prices Rose 2.0 Percent in Third Quarter 2013RealEstateRama (press release)Latest Local, Regional, State Government and Public Real Estate News continually … As measured with purchase-only indexes for the 100 most populated metropolitan areas in the U.S., third quarter price increases were greatest in the Stockton-Lodi, CA … and more …read more

After the latest mortgage settlement arrived a week ago, this one involving JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and the Federal government to the tune of $13 billion, NPR asks: what have the earlier mortgage settlements done to help homeowners? …read more