Mortgage Bankers Association - "Mortgage Applications Increase In Latest MBA Weekly Survey" (6-11-08)

"The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending June 6. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 557.1, an increase of 10.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 502.3 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 23 percent compared with the previous week and was down 16.5 percent compared with the same week one year earlier."

NAHB - "Builders Offer Congress Recommendations On Making Affordable Housing Green" (6-11-08)

"The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) today testified before Congress on ways to improve sustainability and energy efficiency in housing while simultaneously supporting housing affordability."

Los Angeles Times - "Ambassador campus development in Pasadena foreclosed" (6-11-08)

"An ambitious development project that included hundreds of condominiums, apartments and a senior housing complex on the former Ambassador College campus has been foreclosed, Pasadena officials said Tuesday."

CNN - "For this broker, foreclosures spell boom" (6-11-08)

"These trends are forcing people out of the business. The number of National Association of Realtors members dropped in May to 1.25 million, down 6.4% from the end of 2007. Agents specializing in bank-owned property, however, often have more work than they can handle. More than 1 million homes are in foreclosure, the highest number ever recorded, the Mortgage Bankers Association said last week. Agents are signing up in droves to join the National REO Brokers Association, which focuses on real-estate owned properties, as foreclosed homes are known. The Henderson, Nev.-based group used to receive about 100 applications a month. Now it's averaging 400 a month."

CNN - "FHA chief balks at taking on more bad loans" (6-11-08)

"A Bush administration official warned Monday that a proposal to have the government back more bad loans would hurt taxpayers and could make the housing crisis even worse. Federal Housing Administration Commissioner Brian Montgomery told the National Press Club that Congress legislation proposing that the FHA back up to $300 billion worth of troubled mortgages - or about two million loans - would weaken the agency."

Bloomberg - "Auction Rates Fall to Two-Year Low, Redemptions Slow" (6-11-08)

"U.S. state and local governments exiting auction-rate bonds are slowing the pace of refinancing as yields on the debt fall to the lowest in at least two years. Borrowers redeemed or announced plans to refinance about $2 billion of the bonds last week, down 64 percent from an average of $5.5 billion a week in April and May, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. They have already replaced or said they would convert about $78 billion of the debt, or 47 percent of the total, since investors and brokers abandoned the market in February, triggering penalty rates as high as 20 percent. "

Bloomberg - "Washington Mutual Leads Home Lenders Down on Rates" (6-11-08)

"Washington Mutual Inc., the biggest U.S. savings and loan by assets, slid 9.3 percent, leading mortgage-related stocks lower on concern rising interest rates will hurt home values, increasing foreclosures. Bets in futures markets that the U.S. Federal Reserve will end its series of rate cuts and lift the target rate for overnight loans doubled this week after Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled June 9 that borrowing won't get cheaper."

Orange County Register - "Look who’s making subprime loans now" (6-11-08)

"National Mortgage News reported Tuesday that Federal Housing Administration-insured loans have gained a market share greater than 10 percent, a big jump for an agency overshadowed during the housing boom."

The Wall Street Journal - "Some Buy a New Home to Bail on the Old" (6-11-08)

"In markets hit hardest by falling home prices and rising foreclosures, lenders and brokers are discovering a new phenomenon: the 'buy and bail,' in which borrowers with good credit buy a new home -- often at a much lower price -- then bail out of the "upside down" mortgage on their first home."