Marketplace's Amy Scott looks into whether the 24 percent boost in new home sales last month really means anything for the a shrunken housing market and the economy.

Community activists recently demonstrated outside JP Morgan Chase offices in California. Protesters asked why banks don't use all resources available to help modify mortgages. Bob Moon investigates.

Many current homeowners are trying to figure out what to do about their mortgages. The government's fix-it programs and the banks appear to be generating more confusion than modifications.

Mortgage rates are now at historic lows — 4.56 percent. Marketplace asked realtors across the country whether or not the new rates are encouraging potential home buyers.

Marketplace's Wall Street reporter Jeremy Hobson escaped Manhattan this week for a series on how the rest of the country is dealing with the recession. He joins us from Memphis, Tenn., to talk about how joblessness and foreclosures are affecting the region.

Question: I am 35 and entering grad school in the fall of 2010. I will be unable to work during Grad School and have no savings aside from a Roth…

TARP Special Inspector Neil Barofsky told a Senate panel today that taxpayers have put $3.7 trillion towards the financial bail out. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall Genzer explains where all that money went.

Foreclosures continue to climb — but this time it's due to unemployment or people who don't want to pay because they're underwater, not bad loans.

The agency that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has sent subpoenas to banks that issued mortgage-backed securities in an investigation that could end up costing the banks billions.

Businesses and banks along the Gulf coast were nervous when the oil started leaking from the Deepwater Horizon rig, and in the months since, they're still unsure what will happen.