Economists at Freddie Mac are more pessimistic about the economy than they were a month ago, and no longer believe mortgage originations will rebound in 2009.

In another sign that the struggling economy continues to slow, consumer prices tumbled by a record amount in October, carried lower by skidding energy and transportation prices, raising the specter of deflation.

Any elimination of the popular rebates requires City Council approval, budget director Mark Page acknowledged. And council members, who have been flooded with calls from angry residents looking for their checks, declared the mayor’s idea to cut them “dead on arrival.”

Realogy Corp., owner of the Century 21 and Coldwell Banker brands, is at risk of violating the terms of its bank loans and is offering to exchange about $1.1 billion of bonds at a discount for new debt.

From the life imitates art archive: Okay, so it hasn't really happened yet, but there are news reports swirling around about Hillary Clinton and John McCain possibly, maybe, being considered for Cabinet positions in the Obama Administration. Well, The Onion called it back in May in this story dubbed the "2008 Nightmare Ticket" during the primaries. Brilliant!

A year before the next mayoral election, Michael R. Bloomberg appears to have settled on his campaign message: higher property taxes, smaller school budgets, shuttered dental clinics, more parking fees and a new surcharge on plastic shopping bags.

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. announced a major shift in the thrust of the $700 billion financial-rescue program on Wednesday, at the same time joining several agencies in prodding banks to speed up the thaw in the country’s credit system. He is backing away from buying troubled mortgage assets in favor of a second round of capital injections into financial institutions.

The company’s results suggested that home prices are far from a bottom and that the government would probably have to pump tens of billions of dollars into Fannie Mae and its sister company Freddie Mac.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces a $1.2 billion budget deficit in 2009 — $300 million more than it had projected in July — that will very likely require new fare and toll increases or service reductions

In New York City, where real estate and access to good schools often lead to Olympics-level competition, even the specter of changing school boundaries can raise the hackles of parents who chose their high-priced homes precisely because of those boundaries.

Guggenheim Structured Real Estate Advisors LLC, the manager of commercial-mortgage funds set up five years ago by Ed Shugrue, asked investors in its second fund for about $300 million of new equity to meet margin calls and reduce debt, a person with knowledge of the firm's fund-raising said.

Lawmakers are faulting Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson for letting financial institutions use the $250 billion set aside to buy banks' preferred shares to make acquisitions. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. agreed to buy Cleveland-based National City Corp. on Oct. 24 after getting $7.7 billion from the government.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. bank by market value, said it won't begin new foreclosure proceedings on some loans while it finds ways to make payments easier on $110 billion of problem mortgages.

Speaking via satellite at a conference on the mortgage breakdown at the University of California at Berkeley, Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke urged the government to act as a backstop for the mortgage bond market.

So far this year, 748,381 homes—or 46% of the foreclosures—have gone into the possession of the banks as real-estate owned, or REOs, because no bidders were interested in them at auction. Wouldn't it be better for banks to renegotiate principle amounts and avoid both the loss to homeowners and the continuing downward spiral?

Jeremy Siegel — an economist at the Wharton School and NY Times' David Leonhardt had a brief debate on CNBC about whether stocks are cheap right now.

That real-estate agents have an online presence is nothing new. (According to a 2007 study from the National Association of Realtors, 84 percent of home buyers use the Internet in their search.) What’s changing, however, is the growing importance that blogs play in the real-estate world in general.

The city plans to buy up to 115 foreclosed homes to stabilize neighborhoods as part of a broader effort to help struggling New Yorkers, Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday.

A qualified personal residence trust, or QPRT, allow homeowners to live in a property for many years before passing it on to their heirs. Though the trusts have been around for many years, many estate planners say now could be a good time to set one up since real estate values have fallen dramatically in many markets.

The record $1.1 billion Manhattan House conversion on the Upper East Side has run into resistance from several major commercial banks that have either refused to finance condo deals there or demanded exorbitant down payments from contracted buyers.

Boston Properties reported a nearly $200 million decline in net income, from $242.4 million at the end of the third quarter in 2007 to $48.5 million as of September 30 this year. The share price declined from $1.17 to $1.15.

William Ackman, the activist investor and hedge-fund manager, wants Target Corporation, the large discount chain, to sell the land underneath its stores to a new unit set up for the purpose. Target, he proposes, would pay rent to the spinoff, with existing Target shareholders gaining stakes in the new real estate business.

Starbucks is to some extent real estate driven, a business that depends on selecting visible, convenient locations. Arthur Rubinfeld led the company’s real estate and design division throughout the ’90s, fashioning an expansion strategy that focused on traffic patterns and demographics and became a model for the rest of the retail world.

The initiative could be the most sweeping government effort directed at mortgage borrowers since the financial crisis began last year. Under the plan, the government would agree to shoulder half of the losses on home loans if mortgage companies agreed to lower borrowers’ monthly payments for at least five years.

Vicki Been, director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, and Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel Inc., an appraisal company, answered questions on how history might be a guide to the current real estate market in New York City.

Consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in at least 40 years, a survey said Tuesday, as falling home prices and steep declines in the stock market took a sharp toll on the faith of Americans in the economy.

Purchase a home in 67 of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas and you should be able to build positive equity by 2012, according to a new study comparing ownership and rental costs.

Looking to tear down a wall or relocate a bathroom? If you’re a Manhattan co-op owner, there’s a chance you’ll have to run that renovation project by Elliott Glass.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairperson Sheila Bair told lawmakers about her plans to use methods pioneered by several existing programs to encourage mortgage servicers to increase the pace of loan modifications for homeowners facing foreclosure.

The forthcoming 56 Leonard, a 60-story residential tower designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, is set to rise in TriBeCa, and represents the epitome of downtown luxury.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is preparing to take stakes in a number of regional U.S. banks as he seeks to halt the freeze of credit to businesses and households

China’s real estate bubble has lost its fizz in many cities, complicating the government’s effort to manage an economic slowdown here. Fearing a surge in loan defaults for banks, the Chinese government announced a series of measures to support real estate prices.

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said he “made a mistake” in trusting that free markets could regulate themselves admitting that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.

A senior policy maker told a Senate committee that the administration was working on a plan under which the government would offer to shoulder some of the losses on loans that are modified.

After a spirited, emotional and at times raucous debate, the New York City Council voted, 29 to 22, on Thursday afternoon to extend term limits, allowing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek re-election next year and undoing the result of two voter referendums that had imposed a limit of two four-year terms.

The declining level of building activity is not a harbinger of another Great Depression, but an entirely appropriate reaction to recent building which ran far ahead of new household formation. The low level of housing starts is a sign that the housing market is just heading back towards what economists call equilibrium, where supply equals demand and prices reflect supply costs.

Madonna and Guy Ritchie's divorce continues to make headlines as the estimated wealth of the couple is in the hundreds of million pounds. In the seven years of their marriage they have amassed a nice property portfolio in both of their names, however, it will be interesting to see whether Guy will squeeze Madge for some of her pre-wedding fortune, estimated at over £300 million

Housing starts fell more than expected in September to 817k, representing a month-over-month decrease of 6.3%, according to data released from the U.S. Department of Commerce on Friday morning. The drop pushes the number of starts to its second lowest level ever and lowest since 1991.

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council has been selected to run an artists’ studio and exhibition space on Governors Island that will include a year-round artist residency and weekend events.

Insight on housing, the upcoming Presidential election and the markets, with Gov. David Paterson

In the face of the current economic meltdown, some people have more reason than others to worry — people, for example, who need to spend their savings very soon. For them, fear serves a purpose: it encourages action, which may prevent further losses.

New York City’s long-running building boom will peak this year, before new office and residential projects peter out in the coming years and the number of construction jobs falls by almost 30,000 by 2010, according to a report released on Tuesday by the New York Building Congress.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, warned that the American economy was headed toward an extended period of difficulty, despite worldwide efforts to stabilize the financial markets.

I have a friend who regularly reminds me that if you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 stories you can actually think you’re flying. It’s the sudden stop at the end that always gets you. When I think of the financial-services boom, bubble and bust that America has just gone through, I often think about that image.

Real estate brokerage company Redfin has laid off about 20 percent of its employees, and CEO Glenn Kelman assured today that that the downsizing has more to do with "drastic economic changes" than the company's business model.

The Treasury Department, in its boldest move yet, is expected to announce a plan Tuesday to invest up to $250 billion in large and small banks, according to officials. The United States is also expected to guarantee new debt issued by banks for a period of three years, officials said.

What great timing on this Nobel Prize announcement! Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed page columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Moving swiftly to restore confidence, central banks around the world flooded the financial system with billions of dollars in liquidity. Britain, France, Germany, and several other European nations announced aggressive plans to guarantee loans, take ownership stakes in banks and prop up ailing companies with billions in taxpayer funds.

Billionaire term limits proponent Ronald Lauder confirmed his support for Mayor Bloomberg's and the City Council's legislation to add another term to term limits--and expressed his hope it would be overturned after (presumably) Bloomberg was re-elected.