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Herb Weisbaum -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Profile • E-mail There’s no denying it any longer. In most parts of the country, the sizzling house market has cooled. The latest numbers tell the story: Sales of existing homes are expected to drop 6.8 percent this year. The people who make their living selling homes prefer to put a more positive spin on these numbers. They say the marketplace is just going back to normal. “It’s not normal to have 15 offers on a property,” says Jim Warkentin, a Realtor in McLean, Va. “That’s just crazy.” For the most part, those crazy days are...

Twin Cities home sales for May were down from a year ago, as the housing inventory continued its record growth, the local Realtors associations reported Monday. There were 5,039 closed home sales in May in the 13-county metro area. That is down 9.3 percent from a year ago, but up 28.6 percent from April. The median sales price rose 1.1 percent to $230,000 in May, compared to $227,501 a year earlier. There were 5,749 pending sales in May, down 14.5 percent from 6,726 a year ago. New listings continued to soar in May, jumping 16.6 percent to 11,419. Following several...

They are the new breed of mortgages, and home buyers in high-cost real estate markets can't get enough of them: interest-only and payment-option plans that cut monthly payments sharply in the early years of a loan. Lenders have marketed both types of mortgages aggressively -- often to people who need to stretch their incomes to afford homes -- but have said often that their borrowers have solid credit histories and excellent credit scores and that they fully understand the risks once payments reset in a few years. In some parts of the country, the share of buyers using interest-only and...

The housing spin There's nothing funnier or more satisfying (for me, at least) than watching the National Association of Realtors (NAR) change its tune these days. The latest news release from this sunny-Jim industry group finally fesses up to its past fiction, but even when it admits the bubble's going to pop, it can't muster the courage to just come out and say it. Nope, according to the news template the NAR released to the press on June 6, "The housing boom has ended, but sales at historically healthy levels will continue." Wow, sounds great! What about all those poor...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The number of people applying for home loans fell last week, an industry group said Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity for the week ended June 2 fell 1.4 percent to 534.4 from the previous week's 541.9. Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 6.60 percent, down 0.06 of a percentage point from the previous week. The MBA's seasonally adjusted purchase mortgage index rose slightly to 395.6 from the previous week's 395.5. The index is considered a reliable gauge of U.S. home sales. The trade group's...

Realtors call for Fed to stop raising rates as market grows ‘vulnerable’ The National Association of Realtors cut its 2006 forecasts for both existing-home and new-home sales. The housing industry's biggest trade group Tuesday lowered its forecast for U.S. home sales this year and called on the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates because parts of the housing market are “vulnerable.” “Experiencing a slowing from a hot market is a good thing because we need a solid housing sector to provide an underlying base to the economy, and slower appreciation will help to preserve long-term affordability,” said David Lereah,...

“It feels like a solution in search of a problem,” says Pete Bonnikson, vice president of mortgage operations for E-LOAN, describing the latest product to hit the home mortgage market: The 50-year mortgage. Reportedly the problem this hyperextended loan addresses is affordability for homebuyers in high-cost areas. By stretching the repayment calculation over 50 years, so the argument goes, monthly payments fall by enough that borrowers unable to qualify for any of the other dozens of mortgage options can get a loan. For certified financial planners like Nancy Flint-Budde in Salem, N.Y., it is a tossup as to whether helping...

The second quarter is proving to be troublesome for homebuilders. They have been cutting their full-year earnings projections in droves as orders look weak and cancellation rates rise. The latest salvo came Monday after Standard Pacific (SPF:NYSE - news - research - Cramer's Take) and Technical Olympic (TOA:NYSE - news - research - Cramer's Take) announced weak order numbers, sending builder shares lower across the board. The selloff suggests that investors are having trouble seeing a bottom for the group and would rather not buy into a sector that may represent a value trap. "If it is not already painfully...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The Dow industrials sank below 11,000 for the first time since March Tuesday as investors digested hawkish comments about inflation from a string of Fed officials. The 30-share Dow (down 61.15 to 10,987.57, Charts), the world's most widely watched stock market gauge, fell below the benchmark level in midday trading. The last time the blue-chip index closed below that level was on March 9. Video More video How do U.S. federal interest rates affect your mortgage? CNN's Alan Chernoff does the math. (June 3) Play video The Dow has now tumbled more than 650 points, or...

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Kathy Chen is an accessories shopowner in Taiwan struggling to pay huge credit card debts on a modest income. ADVERTISEMENT She is the new breed of "credit card slave." Hundreds of thousands of Taiwan's credit card holders have racked up mountains of debt, undermining consumer sentiment and underlining the risks facing export-led Asian economies that are trying to crank up domestic consumption as an engine of growth. Besides Taiwan, where American Express stopped issuing credit cards this year due to rising defaults, Thailand and China are among those that have tightened supervision to avoid the experience of...

Overall construction activity suffered the first setback in 10 months in April as residential homebuilding dropped by the largest amount in more than two years, the government reported Thursday. (SNIP) Another report Thursday also showed housing activity slowing. The National Association of Realtors said its index for pending home sales fell for a third straight month in April, dropping by 3.7 percent from the March level. This index tracks sales of previously owned homes where a contract has been signed but the deal has not yet gone to closing.

NORTHEAST FLORIDA -- The rise in foreclosures that analysts predicted would follow an easing in lending restrictions, low interest rates and creative mortgage products has emerged in metropolitan Jacksonville. Recently released data from California-based RealtyTrac Inc. showed the five-county metro area experienced a 39 percent increase in foreclosures over last year's first quarter, or 3,579 foreclosures for the first three months of this year compared with 2,570 for the same period in 2005. The increase was just above the national foreclosure increase of 38 percent for the first quarter, which RealtyTrac analysts said could mean foreclosures going above 1.2 million...

29% of borrowers who took out home loans in 2005 owe more than the value of their houses US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said today in Chicago, that he is concerned about the rising number of home loan delinquencies in the US. His remarks coincide with a report in today's Wall Street Journal that soaring housing prices and aggressive mortgage lending have saddled American home buyers with ever greater levels of debt, and early signs are now emerging that more people are unable to keep up with their monthly mortgage payments. The Journal says that recent studies by several...

You may not understand now what I am going to say, which has to do with separation from, and separation of, family. But you very well will understand in your own time. The illegal aliens who are now so demanding, and who are now being given their demands. and for that reason will now demand much, much more - indeed everything, from you - they talk about how those who want to have the most basic laws, perhaps people like you who want the most basic laws because you want to protect your family, well, people like you are told...

Wife just returned from store. Guy there said that all credit card and debit card transactions cannot be processed across US.

Okay, I've lurked for years and just yesterday went on a posting binge. I posted to everyone about everything, just hoping someone would read/talk to me. I've seen these vanities before, and I hope I aint breaking the FR rules or offending someone. I have got to do something or I am going to eat another pack of doughnuts. Posting is probably healthier and certainly not as fattening. Yesterday was DAY 1 of the first day I QUIT SMOKING CIGARETTES. I liked smoking cigerettes, and I was good at it. I enjoyed it. But recently I got to looking around...

NURSES ASSERT THAT SCHIAVO WOMAN, SET TO HAVE FEEDING STOPPED, HAS SPOKEN WORDS SUCH AS 'HI,' 'MOMMA,' AND 'HELP ME'Nurses who tended to Terri Schiavo -- the Florida woman whose feeding and water tubes may soon be removed -- have stated in affidavits provided by her family that the 41-year-old has exhibited clear-cut behavior indicating she is conscious and aware of her surroundings.In stunning testimony, one nurse, Heidi Law, a certified nursing assistant who took care of Terri when she was at Palm Gardens Nursing Home in Largo, Florida, in 1997, said that the severely disabled woman formed words such...

Can someone explain PING to me? Thanks!

I'm writing a paper on National Review for a conservatism class... i remember reading a piece on NRO a few days ago that said how many stories there were about bush's war record, vs. how many there were about kerry's medal flap. can anybody lead me to this article? PLEASE HELP