Mortgage rates are the lowest on record. But by a key historical measure, they should be even lower.Over the past year, a wide gap ripped open between the mortgage rates house hunters see and a benchmark interest rate investors demand to buy bonds backed by home loans.In normal times, this obscure metric would only be of interest to bankers, brokers and traders of mortgage-backed securities. But with housing still dragging on the economy, the spread is potentially slowing the recovery—and import...

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose last month to the highest level in more than 1½ years, while the inventory of unsold homes contracted to a level economists consider healthy, positive signs for housing.

Developer Aby Rosen, who has been fighting headwinds to shore up his highly leveraged U.S. office buildings, faces a new threat, this one to his firm's large portfolio in Stamford, Conn.

Hines, one of the world's largest real-estate groups in terms of assets, is preparing to spend $1.6 billion on buildings in the U.K., doubling its assets in the country in an effort to diversify away from riskier acquisitions.

Located in the Sutton Place area of Manhattan, this pre-war penthouse has two bedrooms, herringbone floors and French doors that lead out to a large, planted terrace.

This hacienda-style ranch house is part of a sprawling development in Okeechobee, Fla., that offers quail hunting and amenities such as a 600-foot zip line across a lake.