Recently in Housing Bubble Category

Raw Story

A senior Bush official told Allen the Administration had no desire to herald the Democrats who shepherded the bill through their congressional committees, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA).

The Independent

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
President Bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry. He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would "seriously consider" a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.

Wikipedia
Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them", he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'" "What was her answer?" I wonder. "'Please,'" Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "'don't kill me.'" I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel -- because he immediately stops smirking.

New York Times

In short, in a nation that holds itself up as a citadel of free enterprise, the government has morphed from lender of last resort into effectively the only lender for millions of Americans engaged in the largest transactions of their lives.

Washington Post

A year ago, the Mortgage Bankers Association was thrilled to sign a contract to buy a fancy new headquarters building in downtown Washington. Interest rates were low, the group's revenues were steady and the prospects for quickly renting out part of the structure were strong.

But since then, the association has fallen on tough times as many of the subprime mortgages dispensed by some of its members proved dicey. Borrowers discovered the loans were more costly than they had anticipated. Foreclosures soared, and cheap, inexpensive credit dried up, slowing the economy.

BBC

A surge in the number of Americans at risk of losing their homes means 1% of all households are in some stage of the foreclosure process, a report says. There were 2.2m foreclosure filings in the US last year, up 75%, according to the market research firm, RealtyTrac.

McClatchy

WASHINGTON — A coalition of major banks with exposure to problem subprime mortgages is finalizing a plan to freeze hundreds of thousands of adjustable-rate home loans at low introductory rates. That would prevent the loans from adjusting to much higher rates, which could trigger mass defaults and foreclosures. Should subprime ARMs reset, many homeowners could be forced into costly foreclosure proceedings that could prevent a rebound of slumping local housing markets and spread to other industries, potentially even tipping the economy into recession.