Fitch Ratings bearish on home builders

The most challenging issue for housing markets is likely to be excess inventory, analysts at Fitch Ratings said as they issued more dire projections for declines in housing starts and sales in the second half of the year.

Fitch now forecasts sales of existing single-family homes will fall 10 percent, to 5.83 million, in 2007, while sales of new homes will be off 23.5 percent, to 812,000. Total housing starts are projected to be 1.3 million, or 28 percent lower than 2006.  more...

Put your blog on the map

The InmanWiki's real estate blog directory has been growing at a phenomenal clip, with more than 600 real estate blogs in the directory and more being added every day.

Inman News has launched a new feature for the directory, which allows users to search blogs geographically using a map, enabling easy access to blogs within specific locations.

Blog authors already in the directory who want their blogs to show up on the map will need to add them manually.  more...

Borrowers cool home purchase plans

Despite an easing in mortgage rates, the number of new home loan applications continued to decline last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's latest survey.

The market composite index -- a measure of total home loan volume -- was down 4 percent last week on a seasonally adjusted basis from the week before. The index that tracks refinancings fell 4.2 percent during the period, and the purchase loan index dropped 4 percent.  more...

IndyMac hiring AHM employees to boost retail lending

IndyMac Bancorp Inc. announced Tuesday that it has hired more than 600 former American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. employees as part of an ongoing expansion of its retail lending group.

New York-based American Home Mortgage, which originated $59 billion in loans in 2006, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month.  more...

Real estate rates end night lower

Long-term mortgage interest rates came down Tuesday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield dipped to 4.51 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average sank to 6.08 percent, and the 15-year fixed rate fell to 5.76 percent. The 1-year adjustable, however, inched up to 6 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield was down to 4.84 percent.

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

NAHB: Flashback to the 1990s recession

It's beginning to look a lot like the early 1990s for the housing market, officials for the National Association of Home Builders trade group said during a "Credit Crunch" presentation Tuesday.

"The housing market is down, it's hurting, and it doesn't look like it's going to bounce back as quickly as we'd hoped," said Jerry Howard, CEO for the builders' group. The focus of the presentation was on problems in the mortgage market and the impacts on the overall real estate market and economy.  more...

Stewart Title settles captive reinsurance claims for $1 million

Stewart Title Guaranty Co. has agreed to pay California regulators $1 million to settle allegations that it paid illegal kickbacks to builders, lenders and title agents in exchange for title insurance business.

In its complaint against Stewart Title, the California Department of Insurance had sought $41.6 million in fines and penalties for allegedly paying out $500,000 in illegal rebates to affiliated businesses as part of a captive reinsurance scheme that generated 3,908 title insurance policies.  more...

LandAmerica announces layoffs, stock repurchase

LandAmerica Financial Group Inc. plans to lay off about 1,100 employees in a cost-cutting move and repurchase nearly 20 percent of its outstanding common stock -- moves that could help the company fend off a hostile takeover attempt.

LandAmerica said Tuesday it had already eliminated about 300 positions since July 1, and was on track to cut the equivalent of 1,100 positions in the second half of 2007 -- about 13 percent of the company's residential and lender service groups.  more...

Click-to-call: What's in it for real estate?

Konstantin Guericke, co-founder of the popular social network  more...