Economy

Renita Barbee has begun packing up the belongings in her rented South Los Angeles home. She was trying hard to hold her composure as she told her story the other day.

Central Texas new-home construction surged to an 11-year high in the third quarter, the latest numbers show.

Pricey U.S. housing markets, from the New York suburbs to California's coastal cities, could take a direct hit under the tax-reform bill released by House Republicans.

From Secretary Carson easing lending concerns to Fannie Mae announcing its expansion of Day 1 Certainty, here's a look at seven things we learned at the 2017 MBA Annual.

Growth in loans with higher debt-to-income ratios is reviving focus on a regulatory exemption for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other federal agencies that back mortgages.

A House Republican tax proposal that infuriated housing groups and sent homebuilder stocks sliding would only have a modest impact on the market for new homes and could end up being a net positive for the industry, according to Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analysts.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency must set fees equal to the cost of capital that private banks hold against similar risk, not just the amount of capital that Fannie and Freddie think are right for themselves.

Nonbank mortgage employment took its biggest drop since January following the recent hurricanes, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Denver's housing market continued to struggle with a frighteningly low number of homes and condos available for sale in October, which helped push up prices and cut into the pace of sales.

Seattle is now a full year into its reign as the hottest housing market in the country, an unusually long surge that doesn't look likely to end anytime soon.

Top banking executives called the Republican tax plan an important first step toward tax reform and economic stimulus, but questions immediately arose about whether trade-offs and complexities in the bill would undercut it.

Hopes that tax reform might soften a weakening of the mortgage interest deduction were quickly dashed as the GOP plan landed a double punch on the incentive cherished by the mortgage and housing industries.

Fannie Mae servicers are facing pressure from the recent hurricanes, but so far are bearing up under the strain.

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings posted net income of $7 million for the third quarter, its first under the new Mr. Cooper consumer-facing brand.

Mark Calabria, the chief economic adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, said the administration is focused for now on more pressing issues than GSE reform, including addressing housing damage from recent hurricanes.

Fannie Mae is allowing in some situations where mortgage payments are made by someone other than the borrower for the full monthly housing expense to be excluded from debt-to-income calculations.

San Diego had the third highest annual home price increase in the nation in August, a distinction not reached since 2014.

Orlando theme-park worker Daisy Hernandez was struggling to find an affordable rental even before Hurricane Irma squeezed Central Florida housing options and Hurricane Maria pushed Puerto Ricans to the mainland.

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma were responsible for an increase in loan application defects during September in Texas and Florida, according to First American Financial Corp.

Homes on Staten Island are reaching "unaffordable levels," at a time when there are less homes on the market than buyers who want to purchase them.