Predicting that Countrywide Financial Corp.‘s loan portfolio will be a potential drag on the bottom line for scheduled purchaser Bank of America (BofA or NYSE: BAC), financial analyst Paul Miller, Jr.

Residential builders continue to grapple with a slowing housing market. A new report from Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc., says its second quarter, which ended April 30, 2008, finished with 2,494 homes delivered during the period, a decrease of 21-percent when compared to the same period a year earlier.

A recent drop in home values in certain communities across the country has been blamed on everything from subprime loans to slowing local economies, but a new report says escalating gas prices may have added significant fuel to the housing slowdown.

H&R Block Inc.,);/*1209735526456*/ the parent-company of subprime mortgage lender Option One Mortgage Corp., announced this week that the sale of Option One to WL Ross & Co.affiliate, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.

Nancy Abney with Prudential Gardner Realtors in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has spent more than two decades in the REO business, but says no one has inspired her more than a recent distressed homeowner, who managed to deal with his foreclosure gracefully, despite the fact, he didn’t know about the foreclosure until it was too late.

New York-based private equity firm Lightyear Capital and mortgage insurer Triad Guaranty, Inc., announced Friday that the two companies have entered into an agreement, that if approved and completed, will result in the creation of a new mortgage insurance company by the end of this year.

AllRegs, a company that provides the mortgage industry with a centralized repository of underwriting guidelines and product manuals, has announced the strategic purchase of Merit Matrix, a division of technology solutions provider Intraprise Solutions, Inc.

The Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Sheila Bair believes the government can save certain borrowers trapped in unaffordable mortgages by implementing a loan program that would allow the homeowners to pay up to 20-percent of their principal, Bair said in an editorial published in the Financial Times.

The federal funds rate has been lowered another 25-basis-points to 2-percent to help the U.S. deal with an economy that is feeling the pinch of energy and commodity prices, The Federal Open Market Committee said on Wednesday.

A new report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis says America’s real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a slight annual rate of 0.6-percent in the first quarter of 2008. The Bureau concluded that the increase in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE) for services, private inventory investment, exports of goods and services, and federal government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from residential fixed investment and PCE for durable goods.