As Foreclosures sour the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) continues to broaden and promote more risky loans.
In the face of souring foreclosures and blistering criticism  of risky creative mortgages, NAHB promotes the self-serving method to continue selling houses... In recent years, consumers have been flocking to such non-traditional mortgage products as interest-only loans, where the borrower does not pay down the principal. Other popular home loans include payment-option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that allow buyers to decide how much to pay each month, including a low-cost choice that provides the option of paying neither the principal nor the full interest...With the share of the overall ARM market now at a record 40%, Mozilo said lenders need to play a bigger role in educating the consumer on the advantages and risks of non-traditional loan products, while stressing that there is "no evidence to show these are unsound loans."

Suspected mortgage fraud soaring
The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCen, on Friday released its first report on mortgage loan fraud, which is said to be one of the fastest-growing white-collar crimes in the country. The agency undertook the review after seeing a significant rise in the number of so-called suspicious activity reports - forms most often used to report suspected money laundering - that it received from U.S. banks concerning mortgage loan fraud.The sample of 1,054 reports reviewed by FinCen came from financial institutions in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa. The highest incidences of suspected mortgage fraud in 2005 were in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas.

Star Telegram: Builder sues foundation firm
Fort Worth home builder D.R. Horton is suing a foundation company that the builder claims is responsible for "serious structural problems and structural failures" in seven homes in the Heritage subdivision of north Fort Worth...The suit asserts that D.R. Horton has had to repair the homes, all of which have foundations designed by Coffee. The suit includes an affidavit by an engineer with the opinion that the foundations needed more stiffening beams in the design.

Homebuilding Texas Style
Pictures are worth a thousand words. "Cypress Bend" subdivision, Princeton Texas.  See more...

Building Inspectors Caught Slacking On The Clock
Nov. 2, 2006: City of Houston building inspectors are supposed to be hard at work to protect you and your family. KPRC Local 2 investigative reporter Stephen Dean found inspectors at the gym, taking extended lunches and at home while they're supposed to be making sure structures are safe. Read more...

Soros Bumped as Top Political Giver by Swift-Boat Group's Perry
Bob Perry, the Houston homebuilder who led the drive to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's war record in 2004, has replaced George Soros as the biggest donor in U.S. politics... One group, the Sacramento-based Economic Freedom Fund, received $5 million from Perry -- almost its entire budget -- and spent at least $829,811 since Sept. 1 on TV commercials attacking Georgia Democratic representatives Jim Marshall and John Barrow. That's more than either party has spent on those races...The group is also airing ads against Democratic representatives Leonard Boswell in Iowa, Darlene Hooley in Oregon and Alan Mollohan in West Virginia. Only Boswell is among the most endangered Democratic incumbents, according to non-partisan groups monitoring the campaign.

Man accused of remodeling sham
If the names of established home builders Pulte and Centex sound familiar, it's probably not because you've hired Daniel De La Fuente to remodel your house. But using names similar to the well-known companies was how he came to the attention of many of the 25 homeowners that prosecutors plan to bring to the stand in De La Fuente's organized crime trial... "Well, my credit was a little ..." De La Fuente waved his hands as though juggling, "... my credit was real poor." He told jurors that he used a different personal name with each company name so that people would not be suspicious.

Texan's donation buys last-minute anti-Tester ads
In three days beginning last Friday, a Virginia group calling itself Americans for Honesty on Issues, took a $1 million donation from a single Texas donor and spent $369,778 of it to produce and run one television ad in Montana against Democratic candidate Jon Tester...It is also unclear where the group is headquartered. Federal records show Americans for Honesty on Issues lists an Alexandria, Va., address - the same address Walden lists on the paperwork. However, Walden's business - Walden & Associates - has a Houston telephone number.

Toxic mold comp suit can go forward, court rules
SAN FRANCISCO"€”An injured employee has been allowed to proceed with a lawsuit alleging that Costco Wholesale Corp. fraudulently concealed information about the presence of toxic mold on its property, a California appeals court has ruled.

Homeowners' dreams shattered by home building company
From a frustrated family in Stanwood to an angry one in Centralia, the KING 5 Investigators have found disappointed new homeowners across Western Washington who bought from Reality Homes in Fife. Don Lehman's troubles really took hold when the framing on his Mason County house couldn't pass inspection. An engineer's report called it "grossly defective" and said "parts of the house could fail (and cause) significant structural damage."

Home warranties: Good or good-for-nothing?
As with a new home warranty, you want to read the policy on a one-year warranty and understand what's covered and what may be excluded. Usually, one-year warranties cover the "moving parts" of a home, like appliances, heaters and air conditioners, and do not include conditions caused by poor construction or bad maintenance.

String of arsons grows
Jeremy Taub would never have bought the newly constructed house in South Bexar County if he'd known that someone had torched three unfinished houses on the same street four months earlier...Roused by a neighbor at 3 a.m., Taub and his wife carried their 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son from their beds and stood in the street to watch as the flames, carried by the wind, gutted their own house...In June, residents reported seeing two cars outside a home under construction on Arkansas Oak moments before it burned down. Less than two weeks later, someone reduced two more unfinished homes on the same block to rubble. The wooden frame of Taub's soon-to-be house also was charred in that blaze, prompting the builders to knock it down and rebuild it, Maris recalled.

Americas Watchdog Says Homebuilding Industry is a House of Cards and Could Face Billions in Un-Paid Federal Taxes and Construction Defects 
"Our nation's homebuilders now face what could become the largest federal tax fraud cases in U.S. History." To mention nothing of the fact that individual states are owed as much or even more. Even worse, millions of US citizens now have to wonder -- who actually built their new home?

Higher Interest Rates And A Weakening Real Estate Market Are Driving Home Foreclosures Through The Roof Homebuyers with adjustable rate mortgages faced payments they couldn't afford. Those forced to sell couldn't find buyers and hundreds defaulted on their loans. Now the place leads the nation in foreclosures – 1 in every 168 households. That's 700 percent higher than the national average. "Almost overnight it's like somebody turned the lights off,"...Things are so bad in Colorado that the state just set up a first-of-its-kind foreclosure help hotline. It got 1,400 calls on the first day.