KeyCorp puts Champion Mortgage on the block

KeyCorp may sell its subprime lending subsidiary, Champion Mortgage, to concentrate on community banking, the Cleveland-based company said Tuesday.

Headquartered in New Jersey, Champion provides mortgage financing and home equity loans in 26 states, with a loan portfolio of $2.5 billion.  more...

Bankrate sees revenue, page views fall

Bankrate will pay $4.4 million to add Mortgagecalc.com, Mortgage-calc.com, and Mortgagemath.com to its growing portfolio of Web sites, the company said today as it announced a second-quarter drop in revenue and page views.  more...

Orange Coast Title agrees to $626,000 fine

A six-year investigation of Orange Coast Title Co. by the California Department of Insurance has ended with the company agreeing to pay $800,000 but denying some charges that it engaged in illegal activities such as making false entries in its books.

The Department of Insurance began an investigation of Orange Coast in 2000, and in February 2006 said it was seeking $14 million in civil penalties for alleged kickbacks and 2,442 violations of the insurance code.  more...

South Florida home sales, prices fall

South Florida's Broward County residential real estate sales fell 25 percent in July as record inventory cut into single-family home prices, according to statistics provided by the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Lauderdale.

Single-family homes sales totaled 778 in July, down from 1,038 a year ago.

The total number of single family and condominium-townhouse residences on the market in July rose to 23,589, up 3.4 percent from 22,821 in June and up nearly 344 percent from 6,033 in July 2005.  more...

Florida to receive $83 million for affordable housing

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson has announced an $82.9 million spending plan to support Florida's long-term recovery from the effects of Hurricane Wilma.

The program will focus on helping counties and Indian tribes throughout southern Florida to restore their stock of affordable housing, according to the HUD announcement.

The funding is part of $11.5 billion in Community Development Block Grant program assistance that Jackson allocated to Florida and four other G  more...

Real estate purchases down for third week

Despite a third consecutive week of lower interest rates, overall mortgage applications continued to decline, falling 1.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from the week before, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today.

The seasonally adjusted purchase index decreased by 3.3 percent last week to 376.2 from 389 the previous week, and is now at its lowest since November 2003, MBA reported. The refinance index, however, increased by 2.3 percent to 1,417.2 from 1,385.2 one week earlier.  more...

Overnight real estate rates trend lower

Long-term mortgage interest rates sank further Tuesday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield held at 4.98 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average fell to 6.15 percent, and the 15-year fixed-rate dipped to 5.86 percent. The 1-year adjustable was up at 5.42 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield decreased to 5.06 percent.

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

Mortgage rate figures are according to Bankrate.com, which publishes nightly averages based on its survey of 4,000 banks in 50 states.  more...