Easier credit comes with relief from charge-offs on old building loans.

Mortgage applications fell last week as rising borrowing costs led to less purchases and refinancing.

Builders broke ground on 1 million homes in May, indicating the industry is picking up this quarter after a weather-induced slump to start the year.

Reasons for the lackluster performance range from the severe winter to rising home prices (which put mortgage payments out of reach for some buyers) to tight credit to stagnating incomes.

Confidence among homebuilders rose in June by the most in almost a year, a sign the residential real estate market is stabilizing after reeling from severe winter weather earlier this year.

Applications for mortgages to purchase new homes decreased 8% in May compared to April, according to Mortgage Bankers Association data released Friday.

A significant number of lenders are submitting the data required by Home Mortgage Disclosure Act with formatting errors, according to a new study.

Among the revelations: A large number of single-family homes built in 2013 weren't sold that year; single-family units, surprisingly, kept getting bigger; cash sales remain higher than before the recession.

Fidelity National Financial and First American Financial are pitching lenders additional technologies and services that complement their core title businesses. CoreLogic, by contrast, is diversifying its clientele beyond mortgages.

The CFPB believes that the answer to all of these problems lies in taking the paper completely out of the transaction and closing electronically.

Today, LinkedIn is the de facto standard to connect with other business executives on social media.

Mortgage rates rose for a second week, extending an increase in borrowing costs from an eight-month low.

Some regional and large community banks are retaining more mortgages for investment because better-than-average deposit growth has given them extra cash they need to deploy. However, they are selective about which mortgages they keep.

Mortgage application volume increased a week after Memorial Day behind a surge in both refinance and purchase mortgage activity.

Lenders are relaxing overlays and adjusting pricing to attract more VA business.

The housing market is unseasonably weak due to consumers' worries about an economic slowdown and a decline in overall household income, according to a Fannie Mae survey.

The reduction in mortgage demand has some credit unions reaching down to slightly lower credit scores.

Economic growth will rebound in the second quarter, averaging 3.1% over the next six quarters, but the housing market may not be as strong due to constraints on lending, according to bank economists.

Small lenders have slashed their payrolls by 9,000 workers this year.

Home price appreciation during the first quarter of 2014 resulted in 312,000 borrowers regaining equity in their properties.