Real Estate News

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen and quarterback Tom Brady have both re-listed their former Manhattan pads. A homeowner has listed the former Phoenix house of Republican presidential nominee John McCain for $12 million. Photos

Home vegetable gardening is surging thanks to rising food prices and health scares with commercial supplies. Some people are paying thousands of dollars to have landscape architects design and install high-end vegetable patches.

Congress is finally about to grant more power to the minders of Fannie and Freddie. And housing agency director James B. Lockhart III will have to figure out how best to use that power.

Architect Zaha Hadid's plan to redevelop Kartal, a postwar industrial area amid Istanbul's Asian sprawl, is the latest example in a new trend in urban development, in which a visionary designer creates a detailed concept for an entire neighborhood.

Jobless claims soared last week by 34,000, to 406,000. Existing-home sales fell 2.6% last month from May.

A sprawling bill that reaches deep into the U.S. housing industry is close to becoming law. The bill, which began seven months ago as a modest attempt to help struggling homeowners, will now likely touch a vast array of borrowers, lenders and investors.

Infestations of Japanese beetles have spread to more than 30 states, wreaking havoc on the foliage of trees and crops. Gardener Steve Stecklow is waging a biological war against these predators.

Mortgage rates are nearing their highest levels in a year, adding to pressures on the weakened housing market.

The credit crunch caught up with the top end of London's home market in the second quarter, when the price per square meter of residential space in the capital's prime locations fell more sharply than in the U.K. as a whole.

The chief of the mortgage industry's most powerful lobby group, Jonathan Kempner, resigned Tuesday, just as the industry is defending itself from a hostile Congress and a punishing housing slump.

Bank examiners from the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are looking at the books of mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Architect Zaha Hadid's plan to redevelop Kartal, a postwar industrial area amid Istanbul's Asian sprawl, is the latest example in a new trend in urban development, in which a visionary designer creates a detailed concept for an entire neighborhood.

Many mass-market home builders are getting into the custom-home game -- once almost entirely the province of boutique builders. The reason is simple: Custom-home building is more profitable for builders and the big attraction for home buyers is the cheaper price.

A medical examiner said that Scott Coles, the late chief executive of real-estate lender Mortgages Ltd., died on June 2 as a result of suicide induced by alcohol, oxycodone and zolpidem.