Over 500 people piled into a hotel ballroom in Manhattan this past weekend hoping to snag a cheap luxury condominium at the first auction of its kind in New York City.

U.S. home prices rose for the fifth straight month and posted the second quarterly increase, but the pace of appreciation slowed and was less than expected, according to Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller indexes.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday after data showed the U.S. economy grew at a slower-than-expected pace last quarter and investors braced for weekly figures to show crude stocks rose in the world's top energy consumer last week.

Sales of previously owned homes jumped in October to the highest level in more than 2-1/2 years as buyers rushed to take advantage of a popular tax credit, a survey showed.

Global stocks began the week in the green Monday, with gold prices hitting a new record high above $1,167 an ounce. Experts told CNBC risk aversion is coming back despite the rise in shares.

China should immediately halt some of its real estate stimulus policies, or risk inflating a bubble that in its bursting would wreak financial and even social trouble, a central bank newspaper said.

A senior U.S. Federal Reserve official said the central bank should keep alive its mortgage-related assets purchase program beyond a planned end-date to help the economy recover from a painful recession.

Oil prices rose Monday as strong U.S. housing data pressured the dollar and lifted expectations an economic rebound will bolster fuel demand.

The dollar fell against a basket of currencies Monday after comments from a Federal Reserve official reinforced expectations U.S. interest rates would stay low for some time.

As millions of Americans struggle to hold on to their homes, Wall Street has found a way to make money from the mortgage mess.

Australian building materials maker James Hardie Industries says full-year earnings would meet the top of market forecasts as the U.S. housing market, the core of its business, hits bottom.

Designed to help low-income people afford to buy houses, the Federal Housing Administration's is now insuring houses for increasingly well-off buyers, says the New York Times.

D.R. Horton, the No. 2 U.S. homebuilder, reported a much larger-than-expected quarterly loss on Friday, sending its shares down nearly 7 percent even though it also said orders increased.

It is "not quite time yet" to raise interest rates in the U.S., Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, told CNBC Thursday.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped to their lowest levels since May, Freddie Mac reported on Thursday.