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.

The auctions are seen as both a way to attract bargain-hunting buyers still on the fence on whether to buy and get the condos sold quickly.

Rising U.S. unemployment propelled more mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, a trend that will continue into next year, the MBA said.

Global stocks were mostly lower Thursday as concerns about the pace of the recovery reared its head. Experts told CNBC they expect dollar weakness for some time to come and suggest staying out of cash.

Government programs don't help the market, one economist says, because they don't "get rid of the fundamental problem: There's still a glut of houses.”

U.S. mortgage applications fell last week, with demand for home purchase loans dropping to a 12-year low even as interest rates on 30-year loans fell to their lowest level in six months, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

US homeowner confidence varied significantly by region in the third quarter as home values in parts of the country stabilized while others saw declines, real estate website Zillow.com said on Wednesday.

Global stocks and commodities rebounded on Wednesday, with gold rising to a fresh high near $1,150 an ounce. Experts told CNBC stocks are likely to rally through until the end of the year.

Unless employment picks up soon, the housing market isn't strong enough to recover without government help,  experts say.

Homebuilder confidence was unchanged at low levels in November, but sales of newly built, single-family homes were expected to rise slightly in the next six months, according to a survey by the National Association of Home Builders.

The pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the third consecutive quarter, but the overall delinquency rate hit another record, a new report shows.

As the economic slowdown peters out and recovery shoots arise, governments are still making good on their promises of infrastructure spending in their massive stimulus packages. And it may be just the time for investors to make money off these government-initiated projects.