Chicago Mortgages

WASHINGTON — If you're underwater and facing financial distress, what might Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's new short-sale-reform policies mean for you? Potentially a lot — even if you are current on your mortgage payments and never imagined...

The latest efforts by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to simplify the short sale process and broaden the pool of eligible homeowners are getting a thumbs-up from the housing industry. Some of the policy changes, which were announced late last month and take...

With the clock ticking on a mortgage payment, the Museum of Broadcast Communications is “aggressively pursuing all options to resolve our circumstances,” museum founder Bruce DuMont said this week. According to documents filed with the...

How long can you hold your breath? It's bad enough millions of U.S. homes are underwater, worth less money on the real estate market than needed to pay off the outstanding mortgage balance. The prospect of millions of Americans dragged under by...

Sales of existing homes in the Chicago area posted another year-over-year gain in July, but the median selling price didn't keep pace and fell after two months of improvement. Last month, 8,551 homes sold in the nine-county Chicago area, a 29.1 percent...

The Federal Housing Administration said Wednesday it has tapped the Chicago area, along with three other housing markets hit hard by foreclosures, for a pilot program designed to stabilize neighborhoods and slow the increase in abandoned homes. The...

Financially strapped borrowers whose mortgages are backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not be allowed principal reductions to help save their homes from foreclosure, a decision that will impact consumers as well as communities. Federal Housing...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has "significant concerns" about a controversial idea floated in Chicago and elsewhere to stabilize communities by seizing and restructuring the mortgages of homeowners who are current but underwater on their loans. The...

Auctions of foreclosed homes in the Chicago area more than doubled during the first half of the year, taxing the resources of court systems and potentially delaying a housing recovery as those homes slowly make their way to the market. An overall...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday that he does not support using eminent domain to seize underwater homes to refinance those mortgages at more affordable terms. He made the statement as Chicago aldermen attended a committee hearing to learn about the...

Foreclosure filings in seven Chicago-area counties swelled during June and the second quarter, keeping pressure on a local housing market trying hard to find a bottom. Another 6,952 homes started the foreclosure process in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall,...

The Justice Department announced a fair-lending settlement with Wells Fargo & Co. on Thursday that will compensate tens of thousands of the bank's African-American and Hispanic borrowers who were allegedly steered into high-cost, subprime mortgages. A...