©2010 AP  The administrator of a $20 billion oil spill compensation fund said Wednesday he's been besieged by real estate agents and brokers, demanding that they become eligible for payments. Kenneth Feinberg, in congressional testimony singled out the real estate agents' demands as one of many tough eligibility decisions he'll have to make in the coming weeks. Read more.  ...
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©2010 Marketwatch.comWith no federal tax credit to entice buyers, today's home sellers have to get even more serious about making a deal.  That means pricing aggressively -- low enough to compete with foreclosures in some markets. It's a conversation that stings, said Summer Greene, a real-estate agent for a Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brokerage office in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.   "It's like telling them that their children are ugly," she said. Read more. ...
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© 2010 Dow Jones  U.S. policymakers need to tackle the revamp of government-controlled mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday.   "Clearly, this is something we need to take on pretty soon," Bernanke said during testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.   The two mortgage finance firms have been under government control since September 2008, and both Democratic and Republican lawm ...
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© 2010 Washington Post  People who applied for a mortgage as of June 1 might see their finances -- specifically their debt -- under renewed scrutiny days before they are scheduled to complete a home purchase.   Fannie Mae, the giant government-run mortgage finance company, rolled out a new policy this summer that encourages lenders to retrieve a borrower's "refreshed" credit report just before a loan closes.   The goal is to check whether the borrower has taken on add ...
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NAR has posted information about the credit-related policies of the FICO Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac on www.Realtor.org. The new documents give REALTORS® and consumers accurate information about various credit policies of these organizations. The document titled "Frequently Asked Questions: FICO Scores" provides general information about how FICO scores are computed, the impact of shopping for credit on a FICO score, how long negative information remains on a credit report, and how various adverse credit events affect a FICO score. The chart on the "Impact of Adverse Credit Events on the Ability of Consumers to Purchas ...
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At the end of June, HomePath (the Fannie Mae division charged with managing its inventory of Fannie Mae-owned homes, known as REOs) issued an REO Announcement that imposed a strict limit of 30 on the number of REO listings that a broker of record could have at any time. The Announcement warned companies that handle Fannie's REO inventory to apply the 30-property limit strictly and noted "100% compliance" was expected. NAR immediately heard from members raising concerns about the impact of such a low, arbitrary limit on their businesses. NAR agrees that Fannie should not have an inflexible limit on the number of REO listings. Instead, Fannie should rely on documented success and ...
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The Section 502 Rural Housing single family loan guarantee program remains unfunded. This program used all their commitment authority back in May, and despite being non-controversial, Congress has been unable to pass legislation to restore the program. Thousands of families with rural housing loans have been left in limbo, and continue to be threatened with the expiration of the tax credit on September 30. Last week, NAR sent a letter to Senate leaders urging them to bring this legislation to the floor. Language has been included in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (H.R. 4899), which has passed the House and Senate. However, that bill continues to be stalled and is currently awa ...
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©2010 Ecreditdaily.com  The Federal Housing Administration will require new borrowers to have a minimum FICO score of 580 to qualify for its flagship 3.5 percent down-payment program – and those with scores of less than 500 will no longer qualify for FHA-insured mortgages.  The FHA is seeking public comments on several policy changes aimed at bolstering its depleted capital reserves, while keeping intact its mission of facilitating home ownership in underserved communities.  The new policies, first announced in January, will also require new borrowers with credit scores of less than a 580 to make a cash investment of at least 10 percent. More >>

©2010 Greenwire.com Decades of mapping, advances in satellite imagery and a dedication to scientific decisionmaking has resulted in the first comprehensive, interactive land cover map of the United States. "It's the best imagery we have right now, the best characterization of land cover that exists as far as I know," said John Mosesso, manager of the Gap Analysis Program (GAP), a project of the U.S. Geological Survey that created the map.  The map depicts the extent of forests, grasslands, wetlands and other habitats from coast to coast. USGS has made it searchable by state and region at three different levels of detail using eight, 43 or 590 classification ...
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©2010 ASAE  The Senate Finance Committee held its first hearing Wednesday to examine the impact of extending the 2001 and 2003 middle-class tax cuts past this year while acknowledging that extending the cuts could cause a budget crisis.  The cuts are due to expire at the end of the 2010 calendar year.Committee members and the panel all agreed on the necessity of extending the middle class tax cuts to help steady economic recovery, but opinion diverged on the length of the extension, as well as the possibility of extending the cuts for the top rate as well.  Committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT) reiterated his support for a permanent extension of the middle class cuts (de ...
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