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Talk of shrinking the government's involvement in the mortgage market is growing. Just don't expect action any time soon.

A conference Tuesday at the Treasury Department is the first of many steps toward restructuring the nearly $11 trillion mortgage market. So far, rescuing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has cost the government more than $148 billion. That number is expected to gr
British house sellers entered the new year in a confident mood, boosting the average asking price by 0.4% in January and ending a two-month slide, property Web site Rightmove reported Monday.
Rising buyer interest and low levels of supply pushed property asking prices in England and Wales up an annual 4.1 percent in January, property website Rightmove (LSE: GB00B0MFTM73.L - news) said Monday.

On a non-seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, prices rose 0.4 percent, reversing part of December's 2.2 percent decline.
After plunging by about 75% from the lofty levels during the housing bubble, new home construction has finally stopped falling.

But, despite massive healing efforts by the government and the industry, home building hasn't shown any real improvement since bottoming early last year.
Home loan providers are now insisting on construction-linked disbursal of funds to new projects, as they look to make developers more accountable after getting stuck in several stalled projects.


Despite a recent jump in real estate prices in Singapore and Hong Kong, Tim Murphy, managing director of IP Global Limited is still upbeat on the sector, especially in mass market property.

"If you want to make real money in real estate, you should be buying stuff which is at the mass market level, that's where the demand is in the region," Murphy said on CNBC's Asia Squawk Box.
Driven by the first-time buyer tax credit, existing-home sales showed another big gain in October with a strong uptrend established over the past seven months, while inventories continue to decline, according to the National Association of Realtors®.