Foreclosure | featured news

Sales of homes in some stage of foreclosure declined in the first three months of the year, but they still accounted for 28 percent of all home sales.

The nation’s biggest banks and mortgage lenders have amassed a glut of foreclosed homes that threatens to deepen the housing slump.

The number of American households behind on mortgage payments posted a substantial decline from year-earlier levels, but foreclosures remained near record highs in the first quarter.

Lower unemployment, bankruptcies and foreclosures in March reduced the nation's economic stress to its lowest point this year, according to The Associated Press' monthly analysis of conditions around the country.

Investors drove up U.S. home sales last month, plunking down cash to grab cheap homes at risk of foreclosure. But first-time homebuyers, who are crucial to a housing recovery, stayed away.

Bank regulators announced settlements on Wednesday with the largest home lenders over allegations of shoddy foreclosure practices, but the pacts did not include financial penalties.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to kill President Barack Obama's signature program to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Federal regulators and the top law enforcement officers in all fifty states are eyeing big changes to the dysfunctional home loan industry. If these officials have their way, borrowers who take out home loans and the investors who buy them will work closer together and find common ground to minimize foreclosures, while the middle men who are supposed to be performing that job will see their power diminished.

U.S. regulators' efforts to settle with banks over improper mortgage foreclosures are being hampered by infighting among the groups involved in the talks, and a settlement may take a while, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The average U.S. borrower in the throes of foreclosure hasn't made a mortgage payment in 17 months, up from nearly 11 months two years ago.