Fannie Mae won't file second-quarter earnings

Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae said Tuesday that it will not file a second-quarter earnings report while it continues to clean up its financial books in the wake of an accounting scandal that came to light last year.

The company hasn't filed a quarterly earnings report in one year.  more...

One-stop shopping unveiled for neighborhoods, schools

A new Internet partnership allows real estate professionals the ability to stream the most accurate data about schools, surrounding neighborhoods, community profiles and local businesses right onto their Web sites.

The partnership between Sperling's Best Places, a nationally recognized company that identifies the best places to live, work, retire and raise a family, and Greatschools.net, a nonprofit organization and advocate for educational excellence, aims to provide real esta  more...

ZipForm adds real estate relocation forms to arsenal

ZipForm, a provider of electronic real estate forms, has added a batch of forms to its library for employee relocation transactions, the company said today.

ZipForm has more than 170 association form libraries for real estate and 200 custom broker form libraries. The latest addition is the Worldwide ERC, which stands for Employee Relocation Council.  more...

HUD hosts third RESPA reform talk

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this Thursday will host its third roundtable discussion on improving the home-buying process.

The forum, co-hosted by the Small Business Administration, is slated for Thursday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at HUD's regional office on Cherry Street in Ft. Worth, Texas.  more...

Real estate loan fundings swell at Countrywide

Mortgage loan fundings at Countrywide Financial Corp. totaled $44 billion in July, up 48 percent from the same month a year ago, the lender said today.

Countrywide's year-to-date mortgage loan fundings were $256 billion, according to the company's latest operational data released today.

As lenders race to gain share of mortgage purchase activity, Countrywide said its monthly purchase volume was $21 billion, a 20 percent increase from July 2004. Year-to-date purchase activity totaled $123 billion.  more...

Real estate prices jump in South Africa, Hong Kong

South Africa had the highest house-price increases in the past year among 23 nations monitored by ResearchWorldwide.com, a real estate information company.  more...

Real estate purchases increase

Overall mortgage applications sank 0.9 percent percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from the week before, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's weekly survey.

The MBA seasonally adjusted purchase index increased by 0.9 percent to 498.8 from 494.5 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted refinance index decreased 3.3 percent to 2,176.5 from 2,250.3 one week earlier.  more...

Nashville real estate heats up

Home sales in the Greater Nashville, Tenn., area maintained near-record levels in July, according to figures provided by the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors.

There were 3,819 home closings reported for the month of July, up 5.2 percent from the 3,627 closings reported for the same period last year.

Year-to-date closings for the Greater Nashville area totaled 21,950, up 4.2 percent from the 21,046 closings reported through July 2004.  more...

Climb continues for overnight real estate rates

Long-term mortgage interest rates continued rising Tuesday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield dropped to 4.39 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average increased to 5.49 percent, and the 15-year fixed-rate gained to 5.1 percent. The 1-year adjustable was up at 3.85 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield sank to 4.57 percent.

Rates are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.  more...