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The supply of homes dipped 2.4 percent in a year-over-year change in 12 of 18 cities where ZipRealty Inc. does business, the brokerage says.
The data covers listings of single-family homes, condos, and town houses for sale on local multiple-listing services. This is the first decline since the firm began keeping tabs in mid-2006.
The data [...]

The housing rescue bill appears to be in limbo. Once it passes the Senate, the Senate version faces substantial opposition from the House of Representatives. The White House also is still threatening veto.
Roadblocks include Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the Financial Services Committee chairman who won House approval of his version in May. He has made [...]

Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rose Tuesday after falling precipitously on Monday over worries that new accounting standards would require them to raise new capital.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is reviewing a rule that might force financial firms to take mortgage-backed securities that are currently off their balance sheets and place them on [...]

Modest near-term movement is expected in existing-home sales, with a recovery in sales seen during the second half of the year, according to the latest forecast by the National Association of REALTORS®.
The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in May, fell 4.7 percent to 84.7 from an upwardly revised [...]

Some are calling this the best market for investors since real estate tanked in the early 1980s.
Investors, alone and in groups, are negotiating volume deals as they purchase whole subdivisions and bundles of 10 to 50 defaulted loans for pennies on the dollar.
“What we’re seeing today dwarfs [the 1980s] by five or 10 [...]

Which candidate would do a better job of handling housing prices?
According to a recent AP-Yahoo News poll, 25 percent of those surveyed said Barack Obama and 17 percent thought John McCain. But nearly 30 percent said neither.
Both Obama and McCain envision the Federal Housing Administration providing new, cheaper mortgages to distressed home owners.
Obama wants [...]

Rents for U.S. office space have stalled, rising 0.7 percent in the second quarter to $25.16 a square foot, according to real estate research firm Reis.
At an annualized rate, rents are growing just 2.9 percent, a fraction of the 10.6 percent seen last year. The vacancy rate rose slightly, up 0.2 percent to 13 percent, [...]

While most homes are staying parked on the for-sale market for a longer time these days, occasionally a residential property turns over in 24 to 48 hours. Such transactions elevate the mood of the professional real estate community and its clients, while offering a snapshot of ideal conditions that contributed to the near-immediate sale and [...]

David Lee, who has managed the $2.5 billion T. Rowe Price Real Estate Fund (TRREX) since it opened in October 1997, says the following areas of the housing market are either doing well now or soon will be.
Mall companies. “There’s good scarcity value in regional malls and not a lot of construction going on in [...]

First American CoreLogic reports that the number of subprime adjustable-rate loans resetting peaked at 7.61 percent of the loans outstanding in June, and more than 300,000 of the mortgages will adjust this summer.
Data from the California research firm covers about 80 percent of the mortgage market. More home owners are facing an increase in [...]