The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) predicts that 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rates will rise to 4.7 percent in the first quarter of 2011, and to 5.1 percent by the end of that year, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Although the rates will rise, the group notes that a rate of 5.1 percent is still very low historically.The

NAHB's Remodeling Market Index stays flat in the third quarter, showing no growth in business for remodelers

Sales of newly built, single-family homes rose 6.6 percent in September, the best rate since June, according to data released by the U.S. Commerce Department, said a press release by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The number of units sold rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 307,000.

Former Secretary of State and retired Gen. Colin Powell will be the keynote speaker at the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo, the USGBC announced in a press release.

The government will have to continue its involvement in the housing and mortgage markets, as the industry forecast for the next year remains dreary, said Freddie Mac CEO Charles E. Haldeman Jr. The government currently backs nearly nine out of 10 new loans.

Existing home sales increased 10 percent in September according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), said a report by Forbes.com. There were 4.53 million existing home sales last month, up 10 percent from the 4.12 million sales in August. Sales were 19.1 percent lower than September 2009, however, with 5.6 million existing home sales.

The Federal Reserve released a new interim rule on home appraisals that helps to clarify the home appraisal process. Under the guidelines, home builders may ask appraisers to consider additional information about the property being appraised, including information about comparable properties.

After three years of decline in the market, remodeling is poised for a comeback in 2011, according to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies

Former White House housing finance issue adviser Peter Swire proposed that senior bank officials personally vouch for the quality of their banks’ mortgage documentation process. Swire, now a law professor at Ohio State University, based his proposal on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which required certain disclosures to restore faith in financial statements after the Enron and WorldCom scandals.

A new look at housing starts based on data from the Census Bureau finds that single-family homes in the U.S. continued to get smaller last year, and the downward trend is likely to last significantly beyond the end of the recession. From a peak of 2,268 square feet in 2006, the median size of new single-family homes dropped consistently through last year, when the size was down to an even 2,100, according to NAHB.