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Subprime 2.0: The White House is rolling out a new low-income mortgage program that for the first time lets lenders qualify borrowers by counting income from nonborrowers living in the household. What could go wrong? The HomeReady program is offered through Fannie Mae, which is now controlled by Obama's old Congressional Black Caucus pal Mel Watt. It replaces the bankrupted mortgage giant's notorious old subprime program, MyCommunityMortgage. In case renaming the subprime product fails to fool anybody, the affordable-housing geniuses in the administration have re-termed "subprime," a dirty word since the mortgage bust, "alternative."

The political left has been trying to run other people’s lives for centuries. So we should not be surprised to see the Obama administration now trying to force neighborhoods across America to have the mix of people the government wants them to have. There are not enough poor people living in middle class neighborhoods to suit the political left. Not enough blacks in white neighborhoods. Not enough Hispanics here, not enough Asians there. Nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the federal government the power to dictate such things. But places that do not mix and match people the way...

DALLAS - By most accounts, census tract 166.05 is not a particularly desirable place to live. Tucked between two major highways in southwest Dallas, the neighborhood is characterized by clusters of ramshackle, one-story houses, huge swaths of vacant land and big warehouses and storage centers. More than 40 percent of people living in the census tract have incomes below the poverty level, a proportion that more than doubled since 2000, according to U.S. Census data. Crime rates and levels of slum and blight are also high, according to the Dallas-based housing advocacy group the Inclusive Communities Project. Such placement "perpetuates...

Xochitl Collazo won't be spending 2016 in Orange County, her home of three decades. Instead, the longtime Santa Ana resident plans to move in with a friend in central Arizona, driven away by unaffordable rents and high health insurance premiums. "It just doesn't make sense for me to be struggling like that anymore," said Collazo, 36, who could barely afford her $1,000-a-month rent from what she earned managing a Mission Viejo doctor's office. "What am I supposed to do? Have no savings? Have nothing? It literally makes no sense." If forecasters are right, there's little relief in sight for Orange...

Harry_Dent December 30, 2015 We woke up this morning to find oil prices weighing on the market… again… with China suffering the biggest losses. Oil prices have already kept stocks at bay in the best time of the year. Funny how this “Santa Claus” rally that I predicted wouldn’t happen this year, didn’t. The last time was in 2007 and 2008 – the last years the stock market crashed. I’ve been looking at how low oil prices will be the first trigger in the next crisis. Although it helps consumers a bit, low prices kill the $1 trillion QE-driven fracking...

The apartments in a new Manhattan building boast little balconies, tall ceilings, dishwashers and storage space. All in 360 square feet or less. It's micro-living in the nation's biggest city, and New Yorkers could be seeing more of it. Planning officials are proposing to end a limit on how small apartments can be, opening the door for more "micro-apartments" that advocates see as affordable adaptations to a growing population of single people. Critics fear a turn back toward the city's tenement past and question whether less space will really mean less expensive.

The 10.5% crash in existing home sales is the worst November drop ever. Against expectations of a mere 0.2% drop, this is the largest miss in history asnd tumbles SAAR sales to the weakest since March 2014. The collapse in sales was across all regions, and ironically was accompanied by a rise in median home prices across all regions. Of course there was plenty of blame to go around, from inventory constraints to weather but most of all - paperwork - as new regulations - Know Before You Owe initiative, has meant longer closing times. In other words, wait til...

The political left has been trying to run other people's lives for centuries. So we should not be surprised to see the Obama administration now trying to force neighborhoods across America to have the mix of people the government wants them to have. There are not enough poor people living in middle class neighborhoods to suit the political left. Not enough blacks in white neighborhoods. Not enough Hispanics here, not enough Asians there. Nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the federal government the power to dictate such things. But places that do not mix and match people the way...

Danielle Hill has a secret, one she shares with dozens of other residents of Baltimore public housing. It goes like this: They don't live in the city. Instead, they live in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Harford and Howard counties, in houses purchased by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. Thousands more have moved to the counties with special rent subsidies in a companion program. Hill's family is among nearly 10,000 black women and children who have moved into overwhelmingly white, prosperous suburbs through a court-ordered relocation program designed to combat the intense inner-city segregation and poverty forged by decades of discrimination....

More bad news about the Omnibus spending bill: the Gosar Amendment language has been stripped out. This language would have prevented the Obama administration from implementing its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule (AFFH), a radical plan to use the power of the national government to create communities of a certain kind, each having what the federal government deems an appropriate mix of economic, racial, and ethnic diversity. Apparently, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan weren’t up to defending the freedom of Americans to decide, through their local governments, how they will live — just as they weren’t up to slapping down...

...Earlier this year, the federal agency - Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule," (AFFH). This is Barack Obama's most radical assault on American citizens and local governments...

Elvis Summers has made it a full time job to put a roof over the head of some of Los Angeles’ homeless people by building tiny homes for them. He is helping people in need before the holidays so that they can have a home before the temperatures drop. Summers expressed fear that without shelter, people who were living on the streets would die...

For two decades, the Newhall Land & Farming Co. has envisioned a new city rising in the foothills north of Los Angeles. Situated on nearly 12,000 acres along the Santa Clara River, the planned community would house 58,000 people and offer stores, golf courses, schools and recreational centers. Los Angeles County’s elected supervisors approved the project 12 years ago, prompting experts to declare that the Santa Clarita Valley would soon be home to other major developments. A mammoth, 5,828-page environmental impact report won court approval a year ago, and a Newhall official declared that the project had been vindicated. But...

PIX11 Investigates has found over 1,500 households earning six-figure salaries while living in New York City Housing Authority apartments. "They should move them out," said Carmen Santiago, an Alfred E. Smith Houses resident. Housing records obtained by PIX11 Investigates show a family reported making nearly a million dollars while paying only $1,574 in monthly rent for a three-bedroom apartment. The household's annual income was $497,911 and the head of household owned real estate "that produced $790,534 in rental income between 2009 and 2013," according to a report by the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development....

OWNING your own house is as much the Australian dream as the American dream, and it's one that feels increasingly out of reach for many. But when one user on Quora pondered whether it was ultimately better to rent or own your own home, blogger and investor James Altucher penned this highly controversial response: I am sick of me writing about this. Do you ever get sick of yourself? I am sick of me. But every day I see more propaganda about the American Dream of owning the home. I see codewords a $15 trillion dollar industry uses to hypnotise...

Coinciding with the mass release of federal inmates, the Obama administration is spending $1.7 million on a “re-entry program” to ease the transition from prison and ordering public housing facilities not to reject tenants with criminal records.The goal is to reduce barriers to public housing, employment and educational opportunities by promoting rehabilitation and reintegration for the formerly incarcerated, the feds explain in an announcement. A key component of the program is a joint venture between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to help public housing residents expunge or seal their criminal records....

I was in my local Lowes store today. Zipcode: 33541 I was shopping for and inquiring about windows to put in the wall of an existing home. There are metal, vinyl, etc. Single, double pane variations. Some block some of the light from the sun from entering to some extent. The Lowes salesman asked me if I was planning on pulling a county permit? I asked why he asked ! He said starting about two months ago they changed the code and requirements for windows. He told me the code that had been applying only to new construction had been...

Michigan is in the midst of a real estate market rebound, with only six other states and Washington D.C. seeing larger increases in home prices over the past five years, according to a report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Washington D.C. had the largest average home price increase from 2010 through this past August, followed by Nevada, North Dakota, California, Arizona, Colorado and Florida. The rise in real estate prices compared to their Great Recession low point translates into higher property tax collections by Michigan's state and local governments. Local governments rely heavily on property taxes to fund their...

Suppose your best friend is down on her luck. Magnanimously, you give her a spare room in your house, on a temporary basis, and when she starts earning some income, you let her pay rent -- say, $100 a week. You would think that just about everybody would applaud you. After all, your act of charity has prevented one more person from becoming homeless. But not everybody is happy with that result. The hotel industry doesn't like it for selfish reasons. Progressive politicians don't like it because .... well, it's not always clear why progressives think the way they do....

CROYDON, N.H. (AP) -- Hilary and Shane Lentz were hooked on the idea of a tiny house, but they weren't sure the reality would be so appealing. Their curiosity led them to the hills of New Hampshire, where a business that started at Harvard University rents out tiny houses for $99 a night. The company, Getaway, has drawn visitors from afar who come to sample life in a 160-square-foot house before they dive headlong into the lifestyle. "It's a way to test-drive tiny house living," said Jon Staff, the founder and CEO of Getaway. "We operate them a little bit...