We usually think of banks as our leading source of financial services, but what if they faced new competitors. Would you be willing to get a mortgage from Google or Amazon, Apple or Facebook? Complete Story

U.S. residential properties sold at an estimated annual pace of 5,213,793 in April, a decrease of less than 1 percent from March but an increase of 4 percent from April 2013. The median sales price of U.S. residential properties — including both distressed and non-distressed sales — was $172,000 in April, an increase of 4 percent from the previous month and an increase of 11 percent from April 2013 — the biggest year-over-year increase since U.S. median prices bottomed out in March 2012. Complete Story

RealtyTrac has created an interactive county-level heat map showing returns on home flipping over the last 12 months in 1,050 counties nationwide, and selected the 14 best counties for flipping homes in 2014 based on return on investment, availability of inventory to flip and low unemployment rates. Although flipping was down nationwide in the first quarter of 2014 compared to a year ago — with 3.7 percent of all single family home sales that were flips compared to a 6.5 percent share of sales a year ago — flippers are making a bigger average profit per flip. In the first quarter of 2014, the average gross profit per flip nationwide was $55,574, a 30 percent ROI. Complete Story