Foreclosure Spat Brews in Chicago
The Wall Street Journal

While many banks are taking pains to work out troubled commercial-property loans rather than foreclosing, Bank of America Corp. has lost its patience with a developer who took on a notoriously stubborn slice of downtown Chicago.

The Charlotte, N.C., bank, as lead bank for a group of lenders, has filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court alleging that affiliates of Joseph Freed & Associates LLC of Chicago have defaulted on a $205 million construction loan to build an urban mall on the site known as Block 37. The bank is seeking to foreclose on the project just as Joseph Freed is planning to open the property's first stores.

Mortgage delinquencies hit another record in 3Q
Associated Press

NEW YORK — The pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the third consecutive quarter, but the overall delinquency rate hit another record, a new report shows.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, 6.25 percent of U.S. mortgage loans were 60 or more days past due, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion. That's up 58 percent from 3.96 percent a year ago.

Construction of new homes drops a surprising 10.6% in October
Los Angeles Times

Builders curtailed construction of new homes sharply in October, according to a government report released this morning.

The pace of new residential construction fell unexpectedly by 10.6% to a seasonally adjusted 529,000 annual rate compared with the prior month and a 30.7% drop from October 2008, the Commerce Department said.

HSBC Sees Improvement in U.S. Home Market
The Wall Street Journal

When the subprime-mortgage crisis hit in the U.S., HSBC Holdings PLC's U.S. unit foreclosed on thousands of homes, many of which it then couldn't unload. Now, there are modest signals that the bank is having an easier time reselling those homes and recouping losses.

The signals are positive for HSBC, the London-based banking giant that has been dragged down by billions of dollars in losses in its U.S. unit as it seeks to expand in emerging markets, especially Asia. Yet the progress may be short-lived, as selling distressed properties could again become more difficult when government foreclosure-protection programs and other measures come to an end.

NAR OKs indexing of listings
Inman News

SAN DIEGO -- The National Association of Realtors' board of directors adopted a new policy Monday making it clear that real estate brokers can allow search engines like Google to index property listings displayed on their Web sites under data-sharing agreements with other brokers.

NAR's board of directors approved several changes to the association's Internet Data Exchange (IDX) policy as it wrapped up the group's annual meeting in San Diego.

by joelc