BUILDER Online's Housing Headlines

President George W. Bush, with less than five months to go in his presidency, said taking over Fannie and Freddie would be “critical to returning the economy to stronger sustained growth.”

It turned out to be the beginning of something much more dire — far beyond a correction, far beyond even a garden-variety recession, far beyond anything most people had lived through.

What it turned out to be was the beginning of five weeks that shook the American financial system to its foundations. The stock market convulsed. Wall Street itself was redrawn. The word “depression” was suddenly on everyone’s lips.

One year later, the economy is only now beginning to show signs — tentative at that — of pulling out of the Great Recession, the longest economic contraction since World War II. The Dow, while still more than 30 percent off its peak, is no longer the source of a daily national ulcer.

The former CEO of Countrywide Financial Corp. is asking for the dismissal of the federal government’s civil-fraud case against him, citing distorted evidence and the omission of company disclosures, according to a published report.

Home prices rose across the country in the second quarter of 2009, but people in the industry said it’s too early to call a turn in the Jacksonville area housing market.

Last month, the owner of the Orlando, Fla., title company that handled his loan admitted to stealing more than $1 million from several reverse-mortgage holders, including Mr. Ford. Bank of America Home Loans, a unit of Bank of America Corp., says the title agent never sent it the money required to pay off Mr. Ford’s mortgage. As a result, Mr. Ford says, the bank recently threatened to foreclose on his seven-acre ranch in Archer, Fla.

After prompting from an IRS auditor, the agency will study whether it should make greater use of data on mortgage-interest payments provided to it by banks. The IRS currently uses such data to send notices to non-filers who it believes should have filed a return.

When Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. reports fiscal third-quarter results on Wednesday afternoon, industry watchers will learn the usual details about contracts, cancellations and revenue. But they also want to hear about drywall.

Passing through the Fort Myers, Fla., airport a few weeks ago, I noticed people eagerly signing up for a free bus tour of foreclosed real estate—with all properties offering water views. During the ride to my hotel, the young driver volunteered that he had just bought his first house, paying $65,000 for a foreclosed property in nearby Cape Coral that last sold for over $250,000. He said he had never expected to be able to buy anything on a driver’s salary, let alone something that nice.

Fortress Investment Group LLC acquired a high-profile New York condominium development in a foreclosure auction Thursday in an early sign that opportunistic buyers are beginning to swoop in on distressed commercial real estate.

Lower prices, mortgage-rate discounts and other incentives for home buyers yielded much-stronger-than-expected orders for Toll Brothers Inc. in its most recent quarter. “Fence-sitters are looking for reasons to jump in on the side of buying,” said the upscale-home builder’s chief executive, Robert Toll. He added that “price is no longer the overwhelmingly dominant factor.”

At our closing, we were told that we can give a 30-day punch list and that the builder would be responsible for any repairs,” she said.

After they closed, they found out something else.

“At that point, we find out through our attorney the Robinson’s had filed for bankruptcy and they probably weren’t going to make good on the 30-day punch list,” she said.

Roger Robinson, the owner of Prestige Homes of Gastonia, and his wife filed chapter seven bankruptcy.

Caruso filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2008, citing plunging real estate market conditions. As part of its restructuring, Caruso has allowed its lenders to take back a portion of its two-dozen housing developments, Caruso lead debt counsel Joel I. Sher, of Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, said in an interview Wednesday.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago on Wednesday delayed until Sept. 17 a confirmation hearing on Kirk Corp.’s Chapter 11 reorganization plan.

JP MorganChase Bank, the home builder’s lead lender that has voted against the proposed plan, agreed to delay the hearing as plan revisions were made. However, the bank said it continued to have serious concerns about the Streamwood-based home builder’s viability.

Federal Reserve and Treasury officials are scrambling to prevent the commercial-real-estate sector from delivering a roundhouse punch to the U.S. economy just as it struggles to get up off the mat.