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ASSOCIATED PRESS - Construction of new homes posted the biggest increase in more than two years in April. While it was a rare bit of good news for the housing market, analysts said it's far too soon to declare an end to the extensive slump. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that housing construction rose by 8.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units. Building of single-family homes continued to weaken, however. The growth came from a big jump in apartment construction. Analysts predicted the surprising rebound in April would be temporary given the headwinds...

MONTPELIER, Idaho (AP) _ A Seattle company has picked Montpelier for a $7 million plant where workers will build environmentally friendly modular motels. Executives from Triad Resorts say they will begin construction of the new plant in Montpellier in the next 90 days, with operations expected to begin next March. The company expects to hire about 150 workers. The plant will produce fully constructed rooms on site that can be shipped by truck and linked to other modular rooms at a motel site. Jerry Ward, principal owner of Triad Resorts, says the company has a contract to also build walls,...

Initial construction of U.S. homes rose unexpectedly in April, according to a government report released Friday. Privately owned housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,032,000 in April, according to the Commerce Department. The rate was up 8.2% from March's revised reading of 954,000 but 30.6% lower than April of 2007. Economists were expecting housing starts to decline to 940,000, according to consensus estimates compiled by Briefing.com. Construction of new single-family homes, however, was at a rate of 692,000 in April, or 1.7% below March's number. That is the lowest reading of that measure since January 1991....

Commercial banks and other financial institutions need to beef up their ability to detect and protect themselves against risks like the credit and mortgage debacles, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday. The trio of crises -- housing, credit and financial -- have exposed weaknesses in financial firms' so-called risk-management practices. That is their ability to sufficiently detect and hedge against risks. Banks and other financial players have racked up multibillion-dollar losses when investments in complex mortgage-backed securities soured with the collapse of the housing market. Credit problems in housing quickly spread to other areas, intensifying the turmoil. "Improvements in...

The Village of Imagine has fallen victim to the local and nationwide housing slump. The project's developer is reconsidering plans to build the mixed-use complex of shops, restaurants and residential units across from the Orange County Convention Center. The project -- originally hailed as Orlando's version of the famed San Antonio River Walk -- is spearheaded by Intrawest Corp., a Canadian developer known mostly for its ski resorts. The planned village, across Universal Boulevard from the county's giant convention center, was to include more than 40 boutiques and restaurants along waterfront walkways. But all that has materialized is a 315-room...

The House passed two bills attempting to rehabilitate the housing and mortgage market this week. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of criticism and blame for the bad decisions, and rightly so. Lenders and banks do share much of the blame for the overheated market. Lending standards were relaxed, or even abandoned altogether, creating an exaggerated pool of homebuyers that led to ballooning home prices that many, especially real estate investors, expected to continue forever. Now that the bubble has burst, the losses are staggering. However, many in Washington fail to realize it was government intervention that brought on...

ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill. — The foreclosure crisis is hitting yet another American locale: the self-storage center. As they lose their homes, people are turning to these humble cinderblock and sheet-metal boxes to store their stuff. But some people cannot keep up with their storage bills any better than they could handle their mortgage payments, and storage companies are auctioning off their property for a pittance.

America May Well Be Only Halfway through the House-Price Bust < SOUNDING more like a cartographer than central banker, Ben Bernanke this week showed off the Federal Reserve's latest gizmo for tracking America's property bust: a series of maps that colour-code price declines, foreclosures and other gauges of housing distress for every county in the country. The Fed chairman's goal was to show graphically that falling prices meant more foreclosures, and he went on to urge lenders to write down the principal on troubled loans where the house is worth less than the value of the mortgage. But the jazzy...

The subprime mortgage meltdown has cost the world 15% of its market capitalization, about $9 trillion. The primary culprit who caused all of this financial loss, pain and suffering is not the mortgage companies. Neither is it the overextended borrowers. It is our own federal regulations interfering with the free market. ... The unintended consequences of good intentions can do more economic harm than all the mean-spirited greed within capitalism. Part of the good intention was forcing banks to be good neighbors by making altruistic loans that discriminated in favor of underprivileged communities. Any attempts by banks to set higher...

IS IT getting too expensive to build affordable housing in Massachusetts? more stories like this Emergency Hub ranks high on inner city business list What happens when doctors want to get a life? American pilots blame management for delays, poor service American pilots to protest at Logan On average, it costs more than $200,000 a unit to build such housing and many projects cost significantly more. A new proposal in the state Senate would make those projects even more expensive. The Senate housing bill would require nonprofit entities and for-profit firms that build most of the region's affordable housing to...

Pop quiz question: Who are the victims of the recent housing crisis? A. Borrowers who signed mortgages they couldn't afford B. Owners who have seen the values of their homes plummet C. Local governments who are dealing with neighborhoods of vacant, foreclosed housing and a shrinking tax base If you chose any of the above, you are wrong. According to the latest legislation getting ready to pass the House, the answer is: D. Plaintiffs' trial lawyers.

IF YOU WANT TO know how smart I am, read my columns. If you want to know how stupid I am, read the comments section of my columns, where readers get to rip what I say to shreds. Used to be that when supposed "experts" like me talked, all people could do was listen. Now they can talk back, and their ideas can compete with mine head-to-head on the web. The most frequent criticism I get in the comments section is that, in my generally bullish view on the economy and the stock market, I'm overlooking the lethal effect of...

LINCOLN — Attorney General Jon Bruning said Friday that the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission cannot be represented by outside attorneys — even if they do not seek payment. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning in Lincoln, Neb. Bruning refused to investigate a complaint of possible housing discrimination because it involved illegal immigrants. Bruning said he will not use taxpayer dollars to file lawsuits for illegal aliens. Bruning, whose dispute with the commission over housing discrimination cases has led to the suspension of federal funds, also said lawyers who talk to the commission could be violating professional ethics. The attorney general is,...

....there's one piece of the mortgage-meltdown tale that virtually every article or television program dances around without ever quite confronting. It's the story of the liar's loan. At the height of the mortgage boom .the liar's loan became a routine way of doing business;.in 2006 in some parts of the country, these loans made up as much as half of new mortgages Imagine a city center where running red lights isn't something occasional .... but where everybody does it all the time. That's a lot like the mortgage market one or two years ago. Of all the problems in mortgage...

New homes built in Montgomery County would have to meet federal energy efficiency standards under innovative legislation approved yesterday by the County Council over the objections of builders who said that the mandate would drive up costs for consumers. The measure, meant to reduce energy consumption by 15 to 30 percent, is part of a far-reaching environmental initiative. It includes property tax credits for residents who switch to renewable energy, a requirement that residents disclose utility costs when they sell a home and a plan to get county officials to trade in their government-issued sport-utility vehicles. "We are attacking literally...

Economists say home prices are nowhere near hitting bottom. But even in regions that have taken a beating, some neighborhoods remain practically unscathed. And a pattern is emerging as to which neighborhoods those are. The ones with short commutes are faring better than places with long drives into the city. Some analysts see a pause in what has long been inexorable — urban sprawl. The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has been hit hard. Prices tumbled an average of 11 percent in the past year. That's the big picture. But a look at Ashburn, Va., about 40 miles from the center...

Why should American taxpayers have to pay to bailout reckless lenders and borrowers? The website Angryrenter.com, launched just last week, has a vitiation demanding that Congress not pass any bailout programs that reward risky borrowing and lending. To wit: "Let the free market sort it out!" The petition is gathering 40 to 50 signatures per hour, according to spokesman Adam Brandon, who adds that the site is already getting 15,000 visitors a day. "There's a huge segment of the country saying, 'We don't want our money used for a bailout,'" said Brandon. AngryRenter.com is backed by FreedomWorks, the conservative, free-market...

Conforming home prices appear to have taken a surprising jump in February, according to data released Tuesday morning by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight...

...Up until 1995 the Community Reinvestment Act was largely a requirement to support "community groups" in poor neighborhoods. Of course, this often meant left wing groups like ACORN, etc. But after 1995 the scope of the law was dramatically increased. Over the strenuous objections of the banks themselves and some Republicans in Congress, CRA was renewed and modified in such a way that it gave far more power to the federal government to punish banks for not lending more widely in poor neighborhoods. The classic "fair housing" laws from the Martin Luther King Jr. era of civil rights were deemed...

...The suggestion behind such talk... is that the slowdown is like the Great Depression of the 1930s. You almost expect Senators Obama and Clinton to repeat the lines from President Roosevelt’s inaugural address of 75 years ago: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The analogy is absurd.... So far, the Dow has declined about 12% from its record high of last fall. In the Depression, it dropped more than 80%. Unemployment is about 5%. In the Depression it was 25%. Maybe 2% of mortgages are in trouble, and abandoned homes line some parts of Cleveland Heights.......

The median sales price of Southern California homes fell below $400,000 in March, as the real estate market's traditional spring bounce was far weaker than normal, a real estate research firm reported today. Houses and condominium units in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties sold at a median price of $385,000 last month... down 5.6% from February's $408,000, and down a record 23.8% from $505,000 in February 2007.

Trend is present throughout the Houston area but is proving more prevalent in newer subdivisions outside the Beltway A growing share of home sales in the Houston area are foreclosures. And that's putting downward pressure on the sales prices of existing homes, according to a survey of 2007 housing prices conducted by Crawford Realty Advisors in conjunction with the University of Houston's Institute for Regional Forecasting. Foreclosures accounted for 16.5 percent of home sales last year, with a median sales price of $100,000. That's compared with 9.6 percent in 2006 at nearly the same price. "This is the first year...

“Risky as hell.” That’s how the Heritage Foundation’s David John describes U.S. Rep. Barney Frank’s mortgage bailout program. He’s an economist who takes the consequences of this taxpayer-backed bailout seriously. Unlike, oddly enough, Frank himself. The Hill recently quoted Frank as saying it’s “irrelevant” how many people are actually helped by his $300 billion plan. “I would hope a million would benefit. There’s no downside. Why not try?” Only a Bay State pol could hand out $300 billion in taxpayer promissory notes and then say “What’s the downside?” It’s like Tip O’Neill getting the go-ahead on the Big Dig and...

Citing the far-flung reverberations from the American housing bust and credit squeeze, the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast Wednesday for global economic growth this year and warned that the malaise could extend into 2009.

GULFPORT, Miss. — After the federal government announced in February that it would no longer use travel trailers to house the victims of future disasters, there was an initial sense of relief along the hurricane-scarred Gulf Coast. The flimsy little white boxes are unpleasant to live in and tainted with toxic formaldehyde fumes. And they cost the federal government billions of dollars. But that relief quickly turned to exasperation when it became clear that the government did not have an immediate backup plan. Without the trailers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has no reliable way to rush immediate shelter to...

...Yes, in January single-family homes in major metropolitan areas lost 10.7 percent of their value from last January. To find such a large decline in a year you must peer back into the mists of prehistory, all the way back to . . . the 1990s. By one measure, between the beginning of 2000 and the middle of 2006, as the consumer price index was rising 21 percent, average housing prices rose 93 percent -- and much more in some markets (Miami, 180 percent; Los Angeles, 175 percent; Washington, D.C., 150 percent).Not long ago there was broad agreement that too...

Taking the advice of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top planning appointee, a Valley Village woman has sued the city over a new rule that allows developers to build taller, bulkier buildings if they include affordable units. Last month, city Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher sent an e-mail to community groups, criticizing the recently adopted density bonus ordinance and laying out a legal strategy to challenge it. On Thursday, homeowner Sandy Hubbard filed the first lawsuit using Usher's suggestions. A group of home and business owners is also considering a lawsuit. Usher and community groups have complained that the density bonus...

After saying last month that he was “prepared to examine new proposals” for addressing the mortgage crisis, John McCain instead came out on Thursday and unveiled a new plan of his own. With yet another monthly government report showing more job losses — and some economists describing the country as already in recession — McCain’s stepped-up response reflects the political peril of not doing enough to respond to homeowners. So in a speech at a window contacting business in Brooklyn, the presumptive GOP nominee rolled out a plan to aid those who have lost their homes or are in danger...

Regulation Is the Wrong Answer : Mortgage market will correct itself without Washington’s help Thomas C. Patterson, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 09, 2008 Since 2001, the number of employees in government regulatory agencies has grown from 172,002 to 244,000. Their funding has increased 44 percent, inflation-adjusted. As a result, Americans face $30 billion more annually in regulatory costs than they did seven years ago. All told, we pay about $1.1 trillion for regulation and compliance costs, about the same as we pay in federal income taxes. In spite of its massive costs, regulation has been unable to prevent market...

Owning a home in Boston is about 70 percent more expensive than renting an essentially identical home. Therefore the government should stop trying to keep owners in homes and instead let more people return to renting. So says a new study from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The study joins a growing chorus making the point that home ownership is a misnomer in many cases. The point is particularly directed against government efforts and proposals to help owners stay in homes by rewriting the terms of unaffordable mortgages. The housing coalition views this as misguided in markets where renting...

You have enjoyed a debt-financed spending spree. But times are now harder: you find it impossible to roll over your debt; you have to pay much higher interest rates than before; or you find that the value of the assets you pledged as collateral is now less than your loan. What can you do? Provided enough of you are in trouble, you call for help from the fairy government-mother. Thus, George Magnus of UBS, among the wisest analysts of this crisis, has already observed, with some approval, that the crisis “is spawning an array of well scripted but highly unconventional...

LEESBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Million-dollar fixer-upper for sale: five bedrooms, four baths, three-car garage, cavernous living room. Big holes above fireplace where flat-screen TV used to hang. The U.S. housing crisis has come to McMansion country. Just as the foreclosure crisis has hollowed out poorer neighborhoods, "for sale" signs are sprouting in upscale developments so new they don't show up on GPS navigation screens. Poor people weren't the only ones who took out risky, high-interest loans during the housing boom. The sharp increase in housing costs -- and the desire to live in brand-new, spacious houses with modern features --...

...But it is John McCain's policy minimalism -- these things are relative -- that merits compliments. He says "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers." For now, he is with Senate Republicans in opposing the Democrats' proposal to empower judges to rewrite the terms of some mortgages, an idea that strikes at the sanctity of contracts and hence at the ethic of promise-keeping that is fundamental to social life. He opposes an additional dose of the toxin that has made the credit system...

...But the real cause of the housing mess is a classic bubble in the housing market, the bursting of which has hammered lenders as well as borrowers. If the market had continued to rise, we never would have heard complaints about subprime loans. In fact, Washington had long encouraged these sorts of loans through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) as a way to make marginal - largely minority - borrowers into homeowners. What's the difference between socially responsible loans extending the American dream to deserving people with poor credit histories and predatory lending? It's whether those loans work out or...

Saying the Communications Decency Act wasn’t “meant to create a lawless no-man’s land” online, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Roommates.com can be sued under fair-housing laws. The full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied immunity under the CDA to Roommates.com, a site that allows individuals to state frank preferences for roommates based on race, sex and other criteria. One of the most pressing legal questions in the online age concerns the extent of immunity granted by federal law to Internet service providers for online content generated by third parties. Many courts have granted immunity based on Section...

MERCED, Calif. (AP) - The end came in a blink outside the Merced County courthouse. Only six people showed up for the foreclosure auction, Janice Pimentel and her son Nick included. By chance, the Pimentels' dairy farm was the first property offered. The auctioneer, a young man in aviator sunglasses and blue jeans, read their address and paused for bids. When none came, the Joe T and Janice R Pimentel Dairy Farm, 21 years in the life of the family, officially became the property of its main creditor, a local lender. "Well," Janice Pimentel said, "that's that." The Pimentels' farm...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted against adding an amendment to a housing market rescue bill that would have given bankruptcy judges the power to ease mortgage payment terms for some distressed borrowers. Offered as an amendment by Illinois Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin to a broad bill hammered out earlier this week, the amendment was opposed by Republicans and the banking industry. The overall bill, estimated to cost $15 billion to $20 billion, would give homebuilders and other businesses hit hard by the recent housing slump a $6 billion temporary tax break. It would also give the...

SHANGHAI -- The city's banks have been told to exercise caution on mortgage lending to help combat speculation and stabilize property prices. Shanghai's banking regulator said on Sunday all local banks must abide by strict mortgage lending policies and spot checks will be conducted. The statement is a response to recent media reports that domestic banks were lowering lending standards to second-home buyers to boost mortgages, which bring a large share of bank profits. Analysts said the government will stick to its tightening policy to cool the overheated property market, although an investment slowdown and housing price dips have been...

Imagine listing your home for sale, but there are no buyers. You drop the price. Again. And again. The house across the street's now for sale. And the one two doors down, plus a dozen others in a two-block radius. Nothing's selling, and every time one home is reduced, all are affected. This property used to represent wealth. Now it's a wealth trap. Most of what you have is here, and with each day passed, it diminishes. Imagine your first home - a dream in granite and stainless. You bought it from the region's largest builder, for 1.5 per cent...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's top housing official, under criminal investigation and intense pressure from Democratic critics, announced Monday he is quitting.Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said his resignation will take effect on April 18. The move comes at a shaky time for the economy and the Bush administration, as the housing industry's crisis has imperiled the nation's credit markets and led to a major economic slowdown....

Fear is the culprit So why hasn't the cure worked? The problem is that vital markets that most people never see - the constant borrowing and lending and trading among huge institutions - have been paralyzed by losses, fear, and uncertainty. And you can't get rid of losses, fear, and uncertainty by cutting rates. Giant institutions are, to use the technical term, scared to death. They've had to come back time after time and report additional losses on their securities holdings after telling the market that they had cleaned everything up. It's whack-a-mole finance - the problems keep appearing in...

WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders are racing to push through an array of election-year housing measures that already have stirred up much political wrangling and the White House is examining its own plan to further help homeowners caught in the mortgage meltdown. With foreclosure signs prevalent and a Wall Street rescue reverberating, majority Democrats want the government to step in and back up to $400 billion in troubled loans. The goal is to help strapped borrowers and thaw a credit market plagued by uncertainty about the value of subprime mortgages made to people with spotty credit or low incomes. As lawmakers...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryMarch 29, 2008 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español       In Focus: EconomyTHE PRESIDENT: Good morning. It's not every day that Americans look forward to hearing from the Internal Revenue Service, but over the past few weeks many Americans have received a letter from the IRS with some good news. The letters explain that millions of individuals and families will soon be receiving tax rebates, thanks to the economic growth package that Congress passed and I signed into law last month. Americans who are eligible for a rebate will get it automatically...

John McCain openly acknowledged that he doesn’t know economics inside and out. Some see this as a gaffe; some see it as another stop on The Straight-Talk Express™. Compared to his potential opponents this fall, McCain sounded like a well-versed scholar. John McCain may not be Milton Friedman, but he does at least land the fighter jet on terra firma when he examines what happened to the housing market. Rather than messing around with philosophical asides on elasticity of demand or velocities of money or maundering over the devious machinations of “predatory lenders”, McCain goes straight to the nub. McCain...

Fifty-three percent (53%) of Americans say that the federal government should not help out homeowners who borrowed more than they could afford. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 29% disagreed and believed that federal action is appropriate. Seventeen percent (17%) are not sure.

Senator McCain has been characteristically direct in confessing his lack of economic policy credentials.... Well, it's one thing for Senator McCain to go around announcing that he doesn't know much about economics. It's another for him to start making policy speeches that prove it, as he did yesterday in respect of the so-called housing crisis. "I will consider any and all proposals based on their cost and benefits," he said. Obvious, but it underscored that Mr. McCain, unlike the Democratic presidential candidates, has no proposal of his own for dealing with the situation. He added ominously: "In this crisis, as...

Statewide, median sales prices fell by a stunning 26% from year-ago levels in February, with home prices dropping at a rate of nearly $3,000 a week, the California Association of Realtors reports. Further, the CAR says the Fed's interest rate-cutting campaign "will have little near-term direct effect on the housing market."

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The white bus rumbles into the quiet suburban neighborhood, heading toward a foreclosed home that sits empty. Neighbors, young and old, cock their heads in curiosity or point at the slow-moving coach. Once the vehicle stops, about 20 potential buyers file out and become detectives, opening and closing cabinets and drawers, knocking on walls and asking about the price, the previous owners and what repairs may be needed. Welcome to the Foreclosure Bus Tour, a six-hour expedition to show Orlando-area homes and educate potential buyers on the vagaries of snatching foreclosures in a state where the...

AP Home Price Drop Signals Tough Spring Tuesday March 25, 5:48 pm ET By Vinnee Tong, AP Business Writer Spring Home-Selling Season Could Disappoint if New Data on Falling Prices Is Indication NEW YORK (AP) -- Home prices plunged by record levels in January from a year ago, with almost no major cities immune from the spiraling market. Analysts worried that even the usually reliable spring selling season would fall flat. ADVERTISEMENT The closely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 cities fell nearly 11 percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest drop in its...

Appearing Friday night on Bloomberg’s “Political Capital” television program, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin called for quick action to address surging home foreclosures, and suggested that policy makers should consider using taxpayer money as part of a solution. Mr. Rubin was supportive of actions already taken by both the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. But he told Bloomberg journalist Al Hunt that “the place that hasn’t been addressed – well, the issue that hasn’t been addressed, are all of these mortgages that are in trouble, the mortgages that are facing foreclosure.” Mr. Rubin said the Federal Housing Administration would...