Mortgage applications jumped by 4.1 percent this week, up from one week earlier, reflecting rock bottom for 15-year fixed-rate loans and unsure homebuyers still eager to refinance. Meanwhile, home purchases fell, according to a weekly survey made public by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Good for mortgage rates, the low numbers persist in driving few homebuyers back to a jumpy and uncertain market. Contract rates for 15-year loans fell hit rock bottom for the first time in the history of the survey.

Once the star of the American Dream, homeownership has fallen on hard times, a victim of the financial crisis and wary homeowners. With home sales at record lows despite rock-bottom mortgage rates and home prices, some say a country once beholden to the mortgage note is now a nation at the behest of landlords. The story sets up a classic whodunit, begging the question: Who set up homeownership to take the fall? Apartment vacancies continue to plummet alongside home prices around the country.

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac released an economic outlook Tuesday that portrays the housing economy as one cramped by recent turmoil, with less-than-favorable signs for a recovery despite historically low interest rates and home prices. Comparing the economy to a roller coaster, the outlook forecasts a long ride ahead for a gasping recovery, with interest rates and home prices sure to remain low. The outlook cites employment numbers, economic growth, mortgage rates, and home prices.

Volatile markets and low home sales are colluding to force mortgage rates to historic lows and sellers to mark off home prices, making actual home purchases less expensive than renting in cities across the United States. Buying a home fell below renting costs in 74 percent of the country's 50 largest cities over July, with 12 percent of cities seeing higher price tags for apartments than for houses, according to real estate Web site Trulia. Bottom line: Peak numbers for home affordability make closing on rates a better deal.

With the latest bank failure tallying up numbers for 2011 at 64, lawmakers convened a field hearing in Georgia Tuesday to determine whether risk-wary authorities are to blame for folding institutions and federal rescues. Appearing as witnesses, several bank presidents complained of a stifling regulatory environment, which federal regulatory authorities, in turn, portrayed as needed and helpful in the wake of the financial crisis. According to the FDIC, this year's 64 failures followed 157 from last year, which built on 140 failures over 2009, totaling 380 failures since 2008.

Elizabeth Warren for Senate? Those four words may take a turn as real as the next sound-bite if the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has anything to say about it. The PAC has raised $100,000 for Warren.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau joined an exclusive law enforcement club Monday as it announced an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission that makes it a full-fledged member of the Consumer Sentinel Network. Law enforcement agencies and personnel will now be able to view consumer complaints the CFPB submits about credit issues, debt collection, and - eventually - mortgage lending practices that complainants report. An FTC spokesperson says the CFPB will eventually add mortgage lending complaints.

The market remains a dim one for new single-family homes, according to an index jointly released by Wells Fargo and the National Association of Home Builders. The index registered confidence at 15 on a 0-to-100 scale, staying largely the same since July. The low confidence follows a hit taken by homebuilding companies in the stock market last week. Analysts and economists weighed in with MReport about how slowing momentum in home construction and sales, as reflected by homebuilder confidence, impacts job creation and consumer confidence.

More homeowners and mortgage borrowers who chose to refinance their loans opted for the fixed-rate loan instead of adjustable-rate mortgages over the second quarter this year, according to a Freddie Mac quarterly report released Monday. The GSE held that some 37 percent of borrowers refinancing their mortgages moved forward with 15- and 20-year loans. Refinancing borrowers nodded toward these fixed-rate loans in increasing numbers, according to the report.

In an endeavor to get ahead of mortgage-related woes from the financial crisis, mortgage giant Bank of America has offered to sell a chunk of its mortgage portfolio servicing rights to GSE Fannie Mae, according to the Wall Street Journal. The sale of bad loan rights to the government entity may shift new bulk onto federal balance sheets at a time when the GSE recently posted second-quarter losses and announced plans to petition the government for more taxpayer funds.