By Marci Greenstein It’s hard to find any hopeful news about the housing crisis.  There was a sharp decline in home sales in December.  And the federal Home Affordable Modification Program, which was supposed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, is not working.  But Ruth Simon of the Wall Street Journal highlighted ...

At least one part of the Obama administration is trying to do something about abusive mortgage lending. The Washington Post's Dina ElBoghdady reports that Housing and Urban Development's Federal Housing Administration wants stricter requirements on the home loans that it has traditionally insured -- one of the oldest ways ...

The New York Times' David Stretfield has a very good piece today about Housing and Urban Development's Federal Housing Administration pouring money into the real estate market. The Obama administration is "guaranteeing the mortgages of middle-class and even upper-class homebuyers." ...

Housing Urban Development's Federal Housing Administration was created during the New Deal to rebuild confidence in the housing market. Today, it is the only federal agency to not rely on taxpayer dollars: its funding comes from borrowers who take out FHA-financed mortgages. However, the Washington Posts' Dina ElBoghdady explains ...

At a critical moment for the U.S. economy, the Bush Administration is sending mixed signals about its plans for the largest and most important investment market in the world – the U.S. housing market.  It looks like all the experts in the world don’t really understand the problems we face – or at the very least no one in government is getting them all to work together.  A strong guiding hand is needed at the tiller right now, or we could have another shipwreck.  So isn’t it time for President Bush to buttonhole a key government manager to coordinate all these recovery efforts?  (Maybe that person should be the Secretary of the Treasury? I realize that kind of sarcasm is completely uncalled for.)

The House of Representatives today passed a bill designed to help homeowners facing foreclosure after taking out subprime loans. The bill passed along partisan lines and could face a veto from President Bush. 

As the Washington Post’s Dina ElBoghady’s reports, such legislation could put an overwhelming ...

 Under now-departed Secretary Alphonso Jackson, Housing and Urban Development has been roundly panned for not addressing the mortgage crisis.  But don't blame that on Federal Housing Administration head Brian Montgomery. 

The Wall Street Journal's Damien Paletta reports that Montgomery has been with the Bush Administration from the start and has ...

The Federal Housing Administration has moved quickly to assist with the foreclosure crisis and is "picking up market share" from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Nick Timiraos writes in the Wall Street Journal.   The move to expand FHA's role, first announced in August 2007, has resulted in a nearly ...

Mortgage lenders have created a new coalition to help homeowners in danger of defaulting on their mortgages, Allan Lengel reports in the Washington Post.  The big brass -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson -- announced the coalition.  But the federal government's ...

Jason Dean and Peter Stein have written a profile of investment analyst Christopher Wood for the Wall Street Journal.  Wood saw the subprime mortgage crisis coming, and attributed it to securitization of banking transactions and other financial products "run amok," as a result of which "investors . . . ignore legitimate financial risk by pretending that it is too spread-out to matter."