Lew Sichelman

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.

As of March 31 roughly 6,800 condo units near the Atlantic seaboard in the tri-county South Florida region were still awaiting buyers, according to a report from CondoVultures, a consulting firm in Bal Harbour.

The coming change in the conforming loan limit will have a much larger impact on loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration than on those purchased or securitized by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

If the audience's response during a special session on mortgage credit at the National Association of Realtors' midyear legislative meetings is any indication, appraisals are still a big issue for front-line realty agents.

The surge in refinancing, now down to a virtual trickle, was officially pronounced dead and gone at the MBA's annual secondary market conference in New York.

As the debate warms up about the future of housing finance, panelists at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual secondary market conference were unanimous in their endorsement of the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.