Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down this week to their lowest point in a month, a spot of welcome news to would-be homebuyers.

Key members of the U.S. Senate have reached a deal on a sweeping housing rescue plan that would see Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac backstop a government mortgage insurance fund, two industry sources said Thursday.

Business magnate Donald Trump recently sold a house in Palm Beach for $100 million, although the U.S. housing sector is still weak, he told "Squawk Box."

In Miami, Chicago and San Diego, condo owners are adjusting to the economic woes, sometimes by mowing themselves and working shifts for building security — all while lamenting their lost community, the New York Times reports.

Freddie Mac, the second-biggest provider of funding for U.S. residential mortgages, on Wednesday said its first-quarter loss widened slightly as its credit losses deepened.

U.S. mortgage applications rose for a second consecutive week, fueled by a jump in demand for home refinancing loans as interest rates dropped, an industry group said Wednesday.

US home foreclosure filings in  April rose 4% from March and were up a whopping 65% from a year earlier, as credit troubles and tumbling home values weigh on the housing market.

The median value of existing U.S. single-family home sales in metropolitan areas fell 7.7 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, the National Association of Realtors said.

Toll Brothers, the largest U.S. luxury home builder, said on Tuesday it expects to report a 30 percent drop in home-building revenue for the quarter ended April 30.

UK housing sentiment slumped to record lows in April, underscoring continued weakness in the sector and piling pressure on the Bank of England at a time when snowballing inflation could force it to keep interest rates on hold.  

A California man who has defaulted on nine homes and expects banks to foreclose on all of them, forcing him into bankruptcy, says he now considers it a mistake to have invested in the real estate market.

As American homeowners fall behind on their mortgages in growing numbers, bankers and policy makers worry that while many of these people cannot pay, some simply will not.

The White House Friday set out terms for a possible deal on a housing market rescue plan, as a sweeping package backed by the House was on its way to an uncertain greeting in the Senate

While there is still debate over whether now is the right time to buy a house, there are other opportunities to make a profit in real estate.

The battered housing market has steadied and is ready to bounce back off an inevitable pullback from its boom times in the earlier part of the decade, said Ron Peltier, the CEO at Warren Buffett's Homeservices of America real estate company.