Housing Round-Up...

2011 was not a good year for the housing market.

Fewer Americans bought new homes in December. The decline made 2011 the worst year for new-home sales on records dating back nearly half a century.

The Commerce Department said Thursday new-home sales fell 2.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 307,000. The pace is less than half the 700,000 that economists say must be sold in a healthy economy.

About 302,000 new homes were sold last year. That's less than the 323,000 sold in 2010, making last year's sales the worst on records dating back to 1963. And it coincides with a report last week that said 2011 was the weakest year for single-family home construction on record.

The One then hands potential home buyers with this added cost:

The new fee is a minimum of one-tenth of 1 percent on Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-backed loans, and is likely to go much higher. It will be imposed for the next 10 years on most mortgages and refinancings and it lasts for the life of the loan. For every $200,000, it amounts to an extra $15 dollars a month. The $35.7 billion collected in fees won’t go into the Social Security fund to replace the lost payroll tax. It goes to the general treasury where Congress can spend it however they please.

That mortgage settlement helps the citizens, right? Ummm, not so much. Read about it here.

And of course, Fannie Mae has its hands out for more money (to the tune of $4.6 billion) after losing $2.4 billion the last quarter of 2011.

Fannie Mae the biggest source of money for U.S. home loans, said on Wednesday it would seek $4.6 billion in additional federal aid after reporting a fourth-quarter loss.

Earlier on Wednesday, the government-controlled mortgage finance company posted a loss of $2.4 billion for the quarter ended December 31. That pushed Fannie Mae's loss for 2011 to $16.9 billion from $14.0 billion a year earlier, the company said.

Fannie Mae's pre-2009 book of soured loans and declining home prices continue to make it difficult for the company to turn a profit.

And mortgage rates are near record lows again, stagnating given the nature of the housing market.