Economy

Brian Montgomery is examining why the reverse mortgage program has suffered big losses, but he said he opposes any changes that could make it harder for the elderly to stay in their homes.

Optimal Blue is expanding its reach in the secondary mortgage market by acquiring Resitrader, a whole-loan trading marketplace that has integrations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Access to mortgage credit inched up in June, as competition for jumbo loans resulted in looser underwriting, but government lending standards got more restrictive, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Hanging over the Sonoma County, Calif., housing market is the damage done by the most destructive wildfires in state history. The fires of October claimed 24 lives and burned nearly 5,300 homes in the county.

A Fannie Mae test to handle the private mortgage insurance process for lenders may raise concerns that it's going outside the scope of its secondary market mission. But the effort reflects its mandate to explore new credit-risk transfer alternatives, a company executive said.

Slight declines in consumer expectations for more favorable future job security, income and interest rates knocked Fannie Mae's Home Purchase Sentiment back down from a record high in June.

The small decrease in Hawaii island single-family home sales was influenced by a major decline in the Puna district where homes in four subdivisions have been destroyed by lava since May.

Home prices dropped from May to June in King County, Wash., for the first time since the recession, as competition among buyers weakened and the number of homes for sale surged.

With the supply of housing down and more jobs available in cities, millennials have flocked to urban neighborhoods at a comparable rate to the suburbs for the first time in decades.

Banks could shed as much as 20 million square feet of office space over the next five years as they shift many functions to high-tech operations centers in markets with cheaper rents.

While affordability remains a top challenge for homebuyers, rental costs are also soaring, which could bring even more house hunters to the market.

Vancouver's housing market showed continued signs of weakness in June, as affordability worries curb demand from buyers.

Despite recent industry consolidation, demand from seasonal homebuyers spurred hiring among nonbank mortgage companies for the second consecutive month in May.

Of the 5,500 housing-unit building permits issued by the city between 2015 and 2017, only 98 were for apartments or houses that people with salaries in the minimum wage range or a little higher could afford.

Columbus, Ohio, had the nation's second-hottest real estate market during June, topped only by Midland, Texas, according to Realtor.com.

Toronto home sales jumped the most in more than a decade last month, a sign that Canada's biggest housing market is rebounding from the chill brought on by tighter lending regulations and higher borrowing costs in the past few months.

Homebuilders in the Twin Cities are having their best summer in more than a decade as permits to build single-family houses outpaced last year for the second month in a row.

Mortgage rates maintained their recent slide and have now declined in five of the past six weeks, according to Freddie Mac.

Housing demand is high, but few homeowners are interested in selling and the resulting inventory shortage continues to drive home prices higher.

Manhattan homebuyers are getting bolder these days, demanding bargains or walking away from deals in a market where inventory is swelling.