A Freddie Mac survey out today shows the average fixed rate for a traditional 30-year home loan was back below 5% this week. It was the second industry survey in two days to show the rate below the threshold, which has become a psychological trigger...

  A Hollywood Hills home once owned by Oscar-nominated film star and singer Dorothy Dandridge ("Carmen Jones," "Porgy and Bess") is on the market at $3,495,000. The restored 1926...

Construction employment dropped this year in more than 96% of the country’s metropolitan areas, according to research released today by the Associated General Contractors of America. Of the 337 metropolitan areas, construction-related jobs plunged...

The average cost of getting a mortgage dropped about 12% nationwide over the last 12 months, according to a new study by Bankrate Inc.

The Top 10 national list of most-searched-for homes last week at Realtor.com among those within 20% of the median list price of $219,300 included nine California homes. Some of the Southern...

The Treasury sold $44 billion in new two-year notes today at an annualized yield of 1.09%, slightly above Wall Street's expectations, as investors demanded higher returns to absorb the latest wave of government debt. As noted in this post, Treasury...

--- Financial bloggers peer into the 2010 crystal ball and mostly agree: Stocks will be up and bond prices will be down (meaning long-term interest rates will be rising). Sometimes the crowd gets it right. --- Airline terror-attempt aftermath: A surge...

Uncle Sam’s voracious appetite for cash will bring the Treasury into the market this week to borrow $118 billion via sales of two-, five- and seven-year notes. Evidently, Uncle’s need for money overrode the understandable concerns that many...

The characteristic campaign photograph of Hiram W. Johnson, who served two terms as California governor and five as its U.S. senator early in the last century, depicted him in a three-piece suit and high collar, with his dukes up. It was in this...

Apple -- Malus domestica Any tree that has "domestica" in its name has been domesticated for a long time. The apple is one of the oldest and most widely cultivated fruit trees on Earth. Its ancestors -- M. sieversii and other species -- originated in...