Fox 23 reports from Oklahoma. "If you're thinking about buying a home, right now might be the time. Realtors say we're in a buyer's market. But just as fast as homes are being sold here in Tulsa, they're also being foreclosed. For a lot of people owning a home is an American dream, but realtors say many new homebuyers jump into it without knowing everything they need to know."

"They say many people buy more than they can afford and don’t realize it until it's too late. 'For almost every homebuyer, that first home ought to be a fixed rate loan.' said realtor Dennis Becker, and he says while the interest rate may start out lower on an adjustable loan, in a few years it could triple the amount of fixed loan. 'Buy less than you can afford.'"

"If you think you're not affected because you're not buying a home now, think again. 'Then credit companies and mortgage companies start tightening up their credit requirements,' Dennis says."

"The foreclosure rate is actually up here in Green Country. In September, more than 1,600 homes were foreclosed on, pushing the year to date number to more than 12,000 foreclosed homes."

From KTEN News in Oklahoma. "For Durant real estate broker, Renea Roberts, selling houses comes easy. She's helped at least 75 percent of homeowners in a Durant addition find a place to live in what she says is a good time to invest."

"'This is one of the things that is bringing people to Durant,' says Broker, Renea Roberts, 'because they can buy an affordable home like this one and put some money in the bank.'"

"Nationally, home prices are dipping, with the worst slump in California. That's why realtors are seeing many move to Durant from all over the country."

"'It was just amazing that what we would get for it here, they come here, bought a nice, big home and still had money left,' says Terry Brooks, realty sales associate."

"'You also have some of the baby boomers, who are getting ready to retire from the East Coast, West Coast and up north that have been up there, making a larger income,' says Brooks. 'And they're coming up here to retire, and they're able to pick up property for cheaper and live better.'"

The Norman Transcript from Oklahoma. "Norman Board of Realtors President Jayme McLaughlin said while the national media has been reporting a terrible real estate market, the local market is doing just fine."

"'While we may be feeling the ripple effect from the media coverage of the markets that are having a tough time, we are not having the same problems as California, Arizona or Georgia,' McLaughlin said."

"'This is a CNN phenomenon that Norman and Oklahoma are getting caught up in,' said Jonathan Leavey, executive VP of American-First Abstract Co. in Norman. 'We should be conservative, but not panicked. To me, if you look at the national media, they are crying fire down the block but saying the fire is here, as well, and they are panicking people.'"

"McAuliffe said people are seeing the national reports and are afraid. 'We are not crumbling in Norman, Okla.,' he said."

"McLaughlin said homes are sitting on the market longer, but buyers are not feeling any pressure to hurry their decisions. 'But homes that are priced at or just a tad below market value are moving from 'just listed' to 'sold' in about 45 to 60 days,' she said."

"She said homes priced at more than $250,000 are taking six months to two years to sell. The median range for Norman sales is $157,000."

"McLaughlin said there is always an ebb and flow to the market. 'The last couple of years were incredible and so we now find ourselves in a more normalized market,' McLaughlin said."

"Dee Taylor, past president of the Norman Board of Realtors, said there is a slowed investors market because the home equity market has slowed down. But even though the market may be a little slower now, Taylor said owning a home is a smart move."

"'It’s still one of the wisest investments people can make,' Taylor said."

"With the market slowing down, some buyers may have unrealistic expectations. 'I think buyers are hoping to snag the deal of the century,' said McLaughlin. 'They want cheap prices when they buy and high prices when they sell.'"

The Denver Post from Colorado. "The mansion at 801 Race St. has stood empty for a year. The Denver landmark was acquired two years ago by a licensed real-estate agent, remodeled and offered for $2.25 million. It didn't sell. The price dropped to $2.15 million. It didn't sell."

"Then a real-estate speculator stepped in, and the house sold for a reported $3 million in 2006. Michael Campbell, a flamboyant real-estate buyer who carried a teacup poodle to house closings, died of an alcohol overdose this year. At the time of his death, he was being pursued by federal and state fraud investigators."

"As a speculative buyer, Campbell, like many others, repeatedly took advantage of the easy-loan era that collapsed this year into the subprime-lending crisis. From 2004 to 2006, he purchased at least 12 houses in Colorado in his name for a total of $8.2 million."

"Campbell signed deeds promising that at least nine of these houses would serve as his principal residence, enabling him to qualify for lower interest rates than an investor. He also had a knack for taking cash from the closing table instead of putting money down by inflating sale prices to boost loan amounts."

"Real-estate listing records show he bought one house for $350,000 above the original asking price and another for $251,000 above the original asking price. Nine of the 12 houses were soon foreclosed. Two others were foreclosed after he sold them to another investor."

"In February 2006, a financial statement Campbell sent to a mortgage broker...showed he owned 11 houses, a Jaguar and a Chevrolet Tahoe, held $250,000 in bank accounts and boasted a net worth of $2.7 million."

"Nine months later, in (a) lawsuit, Campbell said he hadn't filed income-tax returns in two years, was making no money from his properties."

"The day before he said that, he had his hands in the $3 million purchase of the mansion at 801 Race St. The house had sold for $1.3 million in December 2005 to Jeffrey Hammerberg, a licensed real- estate agent who remodeled it and tried to resell it four months later for $2.25 million."

"When it didn't sell, Hammerberg lowered the price by $100,000. It still didn't sell. Yet in August 2006, real-estate listing records show, Hammerberg raised the price to $3.1 million. The house sold for a reported $3 million in November 2006."

"Raising the price from $2.15 million to $3 million made it possible to borrow more money. Eighty percent of a purchase price is a typical loan amount. New Century Mortgage, a leading subprime lender that went bankrupt this year, provided $2.4 million, which was 80 percent of the reported sale price."

"Ronald Low, a spokesman for New Century, said the company uses various measures to guard against mortgage fraud, including examining borrower qualifications and verifying appraisal values on a representative sample of its loans. New Century would not discuss details of the 801 Race St. loan."

"Housing-industry experts say there is plenty of blame to go around. Everyone collected fees, creating what Jonathan Tiemann, a California investment adviser, describes as a pyramid of little golden crumbs."

"'The machinery had been set up so the mortgage would be sold to other parties. At every step of the way, somebody got a fee and then figured they would be able to pass the risk on to someone else,' he said. 'Greed was a very important factor. All the players were pursuing an opportunity to profit from an ever-increasing volume of transactions. The game just had to keep going.'"

"A decade ago, these lenders occupied a tiny corner of the mortgage market. Jim Spray, a veteran Colorado mortgage broker, remembers that the first emissaries of this new industry showed up about 1995, seeking his rejects."

"'You don't need to throw those loans in the trash can anymore,' they advised. 'Send them over to us. We'll get them approved and funded.'"

"As the subprime business mushroomed, the loan quality 'just got worse, progressively worse, until it imploded,' Spray said. 'I should have tried to get my cat a mortgage. I'm sure I could have.'"

"In 2000, subprime mortgages represented 2.4 percent, or $115 billion, of the $4.8 trillion in residential mortgages outstanding in the U.S. By mid-2007, they accounted for 14 percent, or $1.5 trillion, of a $10.75 trillion market."

"Starting in the early 1980s, mortgages were increasingly combined and sold as bonds backed by house payments, said Sue Allon, founder of Denver-based credit-risk manager Murrayhill Co. A financial innovation in the early 1990s — structured finance — changed everything, Allon said."

"Wall Street ingenuity repackaged subprime loans to attract investors by slicing them into securities with different levels of risk. The genius of this strategy was that it opened a giant cash box to the mortgage market by allowing mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies and university endowments to buy the highest-rated bonds."

"'Securitization became a driver for new mortgage-product development, which increased homeownership and home prices,' said Joseph Mason, an associate professor of finance at Drexel University who has studied risk in mortgage markets."

"The subprime models, however, didn't account for the day when home prices would stall and then fall, leaving subprime borrowers trapped with rising payments, said Sam Khater, a senior economist with First American CoreLogic."

"'The environment has always been very strong price appreciation. They never had the test of a tough market,' Khater said."

"For one lender that went out of business, 'we were doing 100 percent loans for a wage earner with a 600 (credit) score and stated income,' said Account executive Susan Mann, whose last employer was Option One."

The Greeley Tribune from Colorado. "Bruce Disselkoen, past president of the Weld County Apartment Association, said many property managers have noticed a recent downturn in the market and are at least partially blaming the high number of foreclosures in Greeley."

"He said that people who can't sell their houses are temporarily renting them out until they build some more equity. Also, there has been an increase in the activity of investors who are buying cheap foreclosure properties and turning them into rentals until the market improves and they can be sold for a profit."

"'There's a flood of more stuff on the markets,' Disselkoen said."

"That glut of properties is driving down prices and also luring people out of apartment buildings -- because they can now afford to rent an entire house for the same price they were paying for an apartment, he said."

The Aspen Times from Colorado. "The credit crunch that’s caused a slump in the national real estate market might be having an indirect effect in Pitkin County. Then again, local sales might be experiencing an inevitable cooling after a super-heated first half of the year, according to local real estate agents."

"Whatever the reason, the dollar volume of sales in Pitkin County fell nearly 37 percent in October, a new report by Land Title Guarantee Co."

"Michael Russo, managing partner at Aspen Sotheby’s International Realty...said some would-be buyers in Aspen might have wanted to wait to see if prices of real estate would be affected by national conditions. 'They wonder if they can buy more for less,' he said."

The Daily Sentinel from Colorado. "A sizzling Grand Junction housing market that posted a 65 percent gain in home prices in the last five years could be giving back a large portion of those gains in 2008."

"That’s because the median price of a home in the region is projected to decrease 9.9 percent next year, according to a housing forecast laid out in the December issue of Money magazine."

"There are some within the industry who think Grand Junction housing prices are headed lower. 'I think you are going to see real estate housing prices soften, primarily in existing houses,' said Denny Granum, president of Monument Homes in Grand Junction. 'I can’t see a huge decline in new home prices because costs are what they are unless, for whatever reason, those costs soften.'"

"Granum, whose company specializes in building high-end homes priced upward of $550,000, said would-be buyers seem to be willing to 'sit back and wait and see what happens with the national economy' before laying out their cash."

"'They are saying, 'I think I’m going to give it a little time,' he said."

"'My best guess is we are going to have some sort of price correction,' said Ron Sechrist, a longtime area real agent and a broker associate in Grand Junction. 'How long it is going to last or how much it will be … I can’t say … But there are a lot of people out there just waiting.'"