Mortgages

The number of homes sold in metro Baton Rouge in November dropped by 2.4% from the year before, while home prices and the number of properties for sale also decreased.

The proposed changes laid out by banking regulators would clear up confusion about what qualifies for CRA credit within so-called Opportunity Zones. But not all community development advocates are convinced that the changes are for the better.

Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are pressuring Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuch to provide more details on administration plans to end the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

While a visit to the Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society off Caja del Rio Road is a happy occasion for many people who leave with big smiles after adopting a furry or feathered friend, one couple was about to leave behind two terrified dogs — for good.

The National Association of Realtors predicted the Las Vegas housing market would likely overperform over the next several years, contradicting a recent report from a national real estate listing website.

Without the baggage of living through the Great Recession, homeownership rates for Gen Z should exceed that of millennials, a plurality of respondents to a Zillow survey said.

Construction of new homes increased more than forecast in November and permits to build climbed to a 12-year high as the housing market strengthened amid low mortgage rates, solid job growth, and optimistic buyers and builders.

Better.com saw huge growth in mortgages to traditionally underserved customer bases in 2019 and believes digital applications led to the avoidance of discriminatory lending.

Even with an increase in both new and existing home construction activity during November, the slowdown over the previous 11 months will constrain inventory going into 2020, according to BuildFax.

Issuance of Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities slipped after several months of gains, but high volume still pushed the year-to-date total for 2019 ahead of 2018’s full-year figure.

The city of Philadelphia and Wells Fargo have agreed to resolve a 2017 lawsuit in which the city accused the bank of violating the Fair Housing Act by steering minority borrowers into risky, high-cost loans.

Without admitting wrongdoing, the bank has agreed to contribute $10 million to city programs promoting homeownership for low- and moderate-income residents.

U.S. homebuilder sentiment advanced in December to the highest level since 1999 amid stronger sales and a surge in prospective buyer foot traffic.

A larger share of Manhattan high-end residential property purchasers took out a mortgage during the third quarter rather than pay all cash for their condominium

Economists see little break in the feverish Bay Area residential real estate market coming in 2020.

Albuquerque is expected to have more empty houses than most cities, due to the baby boomer generation leaving their single-family homes behind.

Freddie Mac launched a groundbreaking multifamily structured pass-through deal that includes a class of floating rate bonds indexed to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate for the first time ever.

Figure Technologies appears to be one of the few companies to find a viable use case for blockchain in the financial industry — cutting down the costs associated with loan origination.

The SoFi co-founder said Figure Technologies is working with national banks to employ its distributed ledger tech for loan originations.

As home value appreciation keeps churning, the share of those upside down on their mortgage grows smaller than ever, according to CoreLogic's Home Equity Report.