Home Owner

Reeling from the recession's one-two-three-punch of job woes, climbing mortgage payments and evaporating equity, desperate homeowners are dipping into a nearby income stream to avoid foreclosure.

The new Fair Lending unit is going after lenders and brokers that have unfairly denied minorities access to home loans.

Behold the house of the future. It’s just like the house of the past, only with some subtle nip-and-tuck work. Across the U.S., home builders are redesigning houses using a set of strategies they call "value engineering" – the art of building a house on the cheap without making it look cheap.

The struggling furniture industry is getting some much-needed cushion from some unlikely sources. Who’d have thought that things like "reclaimed" wood, bike rims and bourbon barrels might help the struggling sector pull through the recent retail sales funk?

Few borrowers read every line of the avalanche of paperwork that comes with a mortgage, and even the most well-intentioned consumer might have difficulty understanding all costs associated with their loan — and how it compares with what other lenders are offering.

As the lousy economy makes large homes tough to maintain – and the tight credit market makes them even tougher to sell – the rules for remodeling are undergoing their own extreme makeover.

With bargain prices, low interest rates and an $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers, it seems like the perfect time to buy a first home.

Maybe the mortgage-delinquency notices are just starting to arrive after a missed payment or two. Or maybe foreclosure is starting to look like a distinct possibility.