Lew Sichelman

After years of sitting on the sidelines of the housing market, a growing population of millennials has begun to embrace the financial benefits of owning a home.

After years of sitting on the sidelines of the housing market, a growing population of millennials has begun to embrace the financial benefits of owning a home.

Opes Advisors shows would-be borrowers how purchasing a house fits into their total financial picture, now and years into the future. Many of its loan officers are licensed investment advisors.

Many consumers without traditional credit scores have nearly identical risk profiles to those who can be assessed the conventional way, representing an untapped market, according to a report by VantageScore.

Nearly one in four Federal Housing Administration loans would go belly up in the next five years if another recession hit the U.S., a new study has found.

Bank of America is taking its small Florida pilot short-sale incentive program national.

The housing market meltdown has foreign governments and banks shying away from bonds backed by American home loans. But individual foreign buyers are taking advantage of the crash to snap up U.S. bargains at a record clip.

If a condo crashes in South Florida, does anyone hear it? Apparently not, because yet another tower is planned for the tri-county area.

The apartment sector is projected to lead the housing market on the road to recovery, but growth in the multifamily sector will be highly uneven, industry experts said last week in Orlando.

Housing production in California was up in November for the fourth consecutive month. But builders in the Golden State are still on track to start the third lowest number of units on record in 2011.

Existing home sales were up in November for the sixth straight month in the huge Houston area market.

Home sales contracts are falling through at twice the rate of last year, according to new figures released by the National Association of Realtors at its annual convention in Anaheim, Calif.

The Federal Housing Administration, which sold more than 102,000 government-owned homes in fiscal 2011, expects to sell that many again in the new fiscal year.

The Obama Administration expects to roll out a plan to lower barriers to refinancing in "the next couple of weeks," HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan told mortgage bankers at their annual convention in Chicago.

The largest state organization of real estate professionals in the country has urged the mortgage community to improve the short-sale process, suggesting, among other things that they set realistic time frames in which to make their decisions and then stick to them.

The average price of existing homes in the Houston area reached a record $228,650 in June, according to the local real estate group, as the number of transactions increased for the first time since January.

Suspicious activity report filings involving mortgage fraud rose by 31% in the first quarter, largely as a result of the large number of repurchase demands by investors.

Early this week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will formally name Haspel to a top post, according to industry officials who have worked with him over the years.

Raj Date, expected by some to be the eventual pick to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sought to allay fears the new agency will overzealous by telling bankers "we have a lot of tools, not just rules."

While a majority of homeowners see good value in borrowing against the equity they have in their homes, a survey found that they also tend to believe the step should be taken only in case of an emergency.