Housing Market, Records | featured news

U.S. home foreclosure activity galloped to a record in the first half of the year, overwhelming broad efforts to remedy failing loans while job losses escalated.

A real estate agent said a resident of Boston's upscale Back Bay section plunked down $300,000 to own what is believed to be the priciest parking space in the city's history.

California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona account for about 46% of the foreclosure starts in the country, the Mortgage Bankers Assn. reports. California and three other states continued to take an outsize share of the blame for the foreclosure epidemic sweeping the nation.

U.S. foreclosure activity in April jumped 32 percent from a year ago to a record high, and should mount because temporary freezes on foreclosures ended in March, RealtyTrac said on Wednesday.

U.S. foreclosure activity leaped 46 percent in March from a year earlier, hitting a record high as programs stunting the torrid pace of failing mortgages expired, RealtyTrac reported on Thursday.

A widely watched index shows American home prices dropped by the sharpest annual rate on record in January.

The widow of producer Aaron Spelling is placing "The Manor" in the exclusive Holmby Hills neighborhood on the market for a jaw-dropping $150 million, making it by far the most expensive home for sale in the U.S.

U.S. mortgage applications jumped last week as record low interest rates spurred a surge in demand for home refinancing loans, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

Prices of existing U.S. single-family homes dropped a record 12.4 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier to the lowest level since 2003, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday.

Sales of new homes plunged to the slowest pace on record last month as the hobbled homebuilding industry posted its worst annual sales results in more than two decades.