home ownership

America reached a milestone on Thursday: the lowest home mortgage rate in history. But at the same time as this astounding announcement, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. home ownership declined 1.1% over the past decade, the biggest drop since the Great Depression. What does it all mean for homeowners, home shoppers, and real estate investors?

It's no secret that now seems like a good time to buy a home: Affordability is high and interest rates are low. But those positives aren't translating into sales. Why? Mortgage issues and down payments remain choke points for buyers.

A 53-year-old woman got divorced in May, and now, she wants to relocate to a new city and buy a little bungalow for herself and her 100-pound dog. But with her low income, she's wondering whether her best bet to get that home is deplete her retirement savings and buy it with cash. Our experts weigh in.

Nearly 90% of Americans still see owning a home as a key part of the American Dream, but 39% see us in a permanent economic downturn. Meanwhile, Obama has set his sights on closing tax loopholes for businesses and the rich, but the Fed just cut banks a break in new rules on debit card swipe fees.

For generations of Americans, home ownership has been extolled as a sound investment and source of moral virtue, stability and community. Renting was seen as anathema, a distinct second choice. But in the wake of the real estate collapse, those long-held assumptions have been called into question.

Billionaire. Oracle of Omaha. The most successful investor in the world. All of these are used frequently -- and accurately -- to describe Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company with upward of $130 million. Though his stock in trade is, well, stock and trade, over the...

In some parts of the U.S., the real estate market remains deep in recession. But even with housing prices sitting at multi-year lows, millions of houses remain empty, unable to attract buyers haunted by unemployment and a weak economy. As part of a new series, DailyFinance takes a look at one town near New York City that is still struggling with the effects of the great real estate bust.

The American dream of homeownership is slipping further away, as the country's economic woes drag on. Almost 3 million fewer Americans own homes today, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report, compared with the peak in the first quarter of 2005, when 69.1% owned homes. The reason for the...

Buyers still waiting for home prices to scrape rock bottom (hint: they will never return to1953 levels) or interest rates to hit zero (I know, it feels like they're headed there) might want to consider that conditions for buying a home are better today than at any time in recent memory. The...

Despite reports that the recession is "over" and loan rates are dropping, one-third of Americans still can't get a mortgage because their credit scores are too low. That's the latest from a mortgage market analysis just released by real estate web site Zillow. The economists who crafted the new...