Bester News

Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have directed their network of servicers to halt all foreclosure and eviction proceedings between Nov. 26 2008 and Jan. 9, 2009, meant to give a recently announced rescue plan time to work.

Several mortgage-rescue plans are making the rounds in Washington, but economists say the best approach may be to sit tight.

All the foreclosure prevention plans announced to date will do little to help the next wave of delinquent homeowners, who can't make their monthly payments because they've lost their jobs.

The Bush administration said Wednesday that it was changing its nearly-moribund mortgage rescue plan in an effort to spark more lenders and homeowners to participate.

If mortgage lending was the Wild West during the boom years, foreclosure-prevention counseling is the lucrative new frontier of the bust.

Homebuilders' confidence in the housing market again plunged to a record low, dragged down by poor financial market conditions, rising unemployment and consumer anxiety, a trade group said Tuesday.

National home prices, driven lower by a flood of foreclosures, plummeted by a record year-over-year 9% in the third quarter, according to a report issued Tuesday.

In a surprise move, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair Friday unveiled details of her plan to have the government help delinquent homeowners.

Mortgage giants Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac may back 30 million mortgages. But that doesn't mean that the new foreclosure prevention program announced this week by the Bush administration will rescue every troubled borrower on their books.

Mortgage rates fell for the second week in a row, finance firm Freddie Mac said Thursday, as the weakening economy resulted in the slowest pace of home purchase applications in nearly eight years.