MORTGAGE

The Obama administration on Wednesday launched a $75 billion foreclosure relief plan, as new data showed one in five U.S. homeowners with mortgages owe more than their house is worth.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - The Obama administration on Wednesday launched a $75 billion foreclosure relief plan, as new data showed one in five U.S. homeowners with mortgages owe more than their house is worth.

The Obama administration on Wednesday launched a $75 billion foreclosure relief plan, as new data showed one in five U.S. homeowners with mortgages owe more than their house is worth.

The Obama administration on Wednesday gave lenders a green light to begin modifying home mortgages under a new $75 billion program aimed primarily at people facing imminent financial hardship.

Applications for loans to buy U.S. homes and to refinance existing mortgages fell for the second straight week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday, as consumers awaited for specific details on President Barack Obama's housing stimulus plan.

One in five U.S. homeowners with mortgages owe more to their lenders than their homes are worth, and the rate will increase as housing prices drop in states that have so far avoided the worst of the crisis, a new study shows.

Citigroup Inc said on Tuesday it will allow some newly unemployed homeowners to temporarily reduce payments on their mortgages.

Citigroup Inc said on Tuesday it will allow some newly unemployed homeowners to temporarily reduce payments on their mortgages.

The telephones have been ringing off the hook at U.S. mortgage lenders since President Barack Obama pledged $275 billion on Wednesday to help stem a wave of home foreclosures.

U.S. President Barack Obama pledged up to $275 billion on Wednesday to help stem a wave of home foreclosures, part of a broad effort to lift the country out of recession. Up to 9 million families would be given the chance to refinance their mortgages under the plan, administration officials said. He unveiled the plan in Arizona, a state hard hit by home foreclosures. Obama, who a day earlier sig...

President Barack Obama on Wednesday unveiled the next step in his multi-pronged efforts to lift the United States out of recession Wednesday, pledging up to $275 billion to help stem a wave of home foreclosures that sparked the U.S. financial meltdown.

President Barack Obama unveiled his much-anticipated plan on Wednesday to fight the U.S. housing crisis, pledging up to $275 billion to help stem a wave of foreclosures sweeping the country.

President Barack Obama was set on Wednesday to unveil a plan to stabilize the troubled housing market, a main cause of the economy's deepening slump.

Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School announced on January 7 a new joint proposal to stem foreclosures through loan modifications.

Citigroup has reached a deal with key senators that may pave the way for judges alter mortgage loans to help homeowners stay in their homes. Cramdowns' as they are called, are when judges force lenders to modify the original terms of a loan.

Fitch Ratings downgraded MGIC Investment Corp and PMI Group on Thursday, citing the stressful mortgage environment, and has become more pessimistic on its outlook for the mortgage insurance sector.

Bovis Homes said on Tuesday that conditions in the housing market had deteriorated sharply in recent times, and that as a result the company expected its results for the first half of 2008 to be significantly lower than previously expected.

Bank of America Corp, seeking approval to buy the largest U.S. mortgage company, said it would help reduce home foreclosures by modifying or working out hundreds of thousands of mortgage loans to help more than 265,000 customers.

The head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s mortgage department, Dan Sparks, unexpectedly quit the firm on Friday, according to media reports.

Capital One Financial Corp., the credit and banking company, said its first-quarter profit fell 9 percent on continued pressures on U.S. companies amid the ongoing credit and mortgage crisis.The Mc...

Steve Crawshaw, chairman of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has said that without extra funding from the Bank of England, mortgage lending could fall by half in 2008.