Slower economic growth and rising inflationary pressures are cited as competing trends in the U.S. economy by Freddie Mac in its monthly Economic Outlook for August which was released on Wednesday.

...The report estimates that $500 billion in first mortgages and $650 billion in second lien loans will be refinanced this year and that a total of...

As promised, we are continuing an account of a hearing conducted recently by the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity of the House Banking Committee. The hearing, entitled The Changing Real Estate Market purportedly sought to investigate competition in the real estate industry.

Mortgage rates dropped again during the week ended August 3 and August 4, and with the announcement on August 8 that the Federal Reserve has, for the moment at least, stopped its regular lock step quarter-point increases in the federal funds rate, there is reason to hope that home mortgage rates will continue to ease.

In a press release on Tuesday, the Federal Reserved stated that "Economic growth has moderated from its quite strong pace earlier this year, partly reflecting a gradual cooling of the housing market and...

Remember our old friend Michael G. Oxley?

Recently the House Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity held hearings entitled "The Changing Real Estate Market." We will try our best to report on this hearing in a fair and balanced way. Well, actually we will try but may not totally succeed.

Newsweek Magazine's Tip Sheet section last week featured two Web sites that have nothing to do with real estate or mortgage financing but may illustrate the future of the mortgage lending game.

It is not such a stretch to see a prospective homebuyer logging on to (example) Helpmebuy.com or some such with a request for the $250,000 he figures he needs to buy a home and the rate he is willing to pay and be pre-approved by a single lender or 1,000 of them in a matter of hours. This would truly be "lenders bidding for your business".

Peer to peer lending, it's a brave new world...

Home buyers have waited for years but perhaps the agony is over. It is official; the National Association of Realtors has confirmed that we are now in a buyers' market.

According to the NAR June report on existing home sales issued last week there is now a 6.8 month supply of existing homes on the market. One year ago the supply was 4.4 months. The joint report of the Department of Commerce and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on new home sales contained...

The brutal murder of Sarah Ann Walker in McKinney, Texas early this month has again spotlighted a perennial topic - violence against real estate agents and real estate safety tips.

Law enforcement officials, real estate boards, real estate trainers, and others routinely advise agents to observe some common sense safety precautions. Among them...

Resourceful real estate agents and mortgage brokers as well as builders will doubtlessly see a lot of possibilities for developing a marketing niche among single women home buyers.

And this week, they are down.

Mortgage rates, that is. The one week up, two weeks down, two weeks up pattern continues as the markets try to outguess where the Federal Reserve is going with rates, fewer people apply for mortgages, and housing sales in some parts of the country also slide.

Freddie Mac's Weekly Mortgage Market Survey showed an encouraging...

It was nice while it lasted - one full week to be exact - but, according to Freddie Mac the mortgage market last week took back most of the rate decreases that were so welcome the week before. The Mortgage Bankers Association, however, recorded rate drops stretching into a second week.

Freddie Mac's chief economist Frank Nothaft indicated that rate increases reflected a market that was still spooked by the specter of increasing inflation. "However, Fed Chief Bernanke, in his semi-annual speech to Congress, hinted that another hike in overnight lending rates...

Reuters - Stock futures jumped on Tuesday after government data showed a lower than expected increase in producer prices in July.

Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Tuesday reported a 26 percent drop in quarterly profit -- its first earnings decline in more than 10 years -- because of a charge for selling its German stores to a rival, but it maintained its full-year profit forecast.

Reuters - Stock futures jumped on Tuesday after government data showed a lower than expected increase in producer prices in July.

AP - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, posted its first profit decline in a decade Tuesday as second-quarter earnings fell 26 percent due to the cost of selling its Germany operation.