There is plenty of evidence here in the Louisville real estate market and elsewhere that foreclosures have a negative effect on home prices, but researchers at Harvard and MIT wanted to know precisely how much. They analyzed years of home sales data in Massachusetts and found that foreclosed homes sell for an average of 27 percent less than homes that have mortgages in good standing or are owned...

Mortgage watchers from the Wall Street Journal report that overall, mortgage rates were mixed in the last week of October with long-term fixed-rate mortgages slightly higher for the second consecutive week. These gains, however modest, broke a long streak of many weeks of record lows, according to federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.23 percent for the last week...

Despite mounting evidence that many of the nation's mortgage lenders failed to follow due process when foreclosing on millions of homes, the Obama administration's top housing official has told lenders they may resume foreclosing on homes. The announcement follows a temporary moratorium that gave troubled homeowners a small respite from foreclosure proceedings. Taking their cue from the feds, two of the...

A recent Fox 41 investigation into the sales of Louisville homes found that sales dropped each month over the summer, and sellers are getting creative in trying to find and entice prospective buyers. Robin Feeney is one of the sellers looking at new ways to attract interest and sell her home. For the last 33 years, she has lived in Crestwood, and she says that she's not afraid to try anything to sell her...

The Louisville chapter of Habitat for Humanity has built 336 homes over the last 25 years, and a local mother recently took possession of home #337. The charitable organization, along with employees from Norton Healthcare, recently worked together to build a new Louisville home on East Caldwell Street in Smoketown. Volunteers framed the walls of the one-story, three-bedroom home and installed doors and...

A meeting convened recently at the McDonough School of Business of Georgetown University where some of the biggest names in commercial real estate discussed the state of the industry. Commercial real estate in the U.S. is currently mired in its worst funk since the Great Depression, and in the two years since the credit bubble burst, prices have plunged an average of 40 percent. Industry analysts say that...

August sales of existing homes brought modest relief to a struggling housing market in most areas of the country with sales up 7.6 percent from record lows. The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes rose to an annual rate of 4.13 million. The NAR also reported that the 12.5-month inventory of unsold homes in the U.S. in July dropped to 3.98 million, or an...

Recent announcements from Bank of America, JPMorgan and some other mortgage lenders about a stop to foreclosures until they had investigated "oversights" in the foreclosure process suggest that these problems are more serious and widespread than we initially thought. In a deposition she gave last February, one Bank of America official admitted that she signed 7,000 to 8,000 foreclosure documents per month...

Plunging home values in many housing markets across the country have led to increased short sales (sales in which a home sells for less than the amount owed on the mortgage), and some scam artists are using the spike in short sales to commit fraud. California-based CoreLogic, a firm that provides research, analysis and business services to real estate and other industries, is reporting that lenders need...

Bank of America announced recently that it is delaying foreclosures on homes in Kentucky, Indiana and 21 other states. The country's largest bank reported that it is halting foreclosures to review whether it rushed the foreclosure process on thousands of homes without reading the documentation for each foreclosure. Other mortgage lenders, including Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage unit and JPMorgan...