Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Associated Press, "The National Association of Realtors seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for existing homes fell to a reading of 87.6...down 19.2 percent from a year ago. (The) trade group predicted Tuesday that the pace of U.S. home sales will pick up significantly in the second half of 2008, bringing total sales for the year marginally higher than in 2007."

"'The exact timing and the strength of a home sales recovery is a bit uncertain,' Lawrence Yun, the group's chief economist, said in a statement. 'A meaningful recovery in existing-home sales could occur as early as this spring, or it may be further delayed toward late 2008.'"

"The Realtors group predicted new home sales would fall 13.4 percent this year to 669,000, down from a projected total of 773,000 in 2007."

"The group did not anticipate 2007's severe housing market downturn. A year ago, it was predicting more than 6.4 million existing home sales -- about 760,000 more than actually happened."

From Bloomberg. "Tougher lending rules are adding to market woes. A third of planned home sales were canceled or delayed in September, October and November because of loan problems, according to the results of a survey of 2,416 real-estate agents issued yesterday."

"The Realtors association estimates...purchases of new homes will fall to 669,000 from 773,000."

From CNN Money. "The National Association of Realtors also said it no longer sees even a modest rebound in existing home prices this year, as it had previously forecast, and pushed back its estimate of a full-year uptick in prices to 2009."

"The group also cut its existing home price estimate for the current quarter to more than 5 percent below year-ago levels, which would mean the current period would see the steepest drop in that price measure on record."

"Only a month ago the group's estimate was for only a 2.5 percent drop in prices in the first quarter."

"The latest reading on pending home sales is better only than the pace of sales in August and September, when the meltdown in mortgage markets cut off the availability of mortgage financing for many buyers."

"The November reading is even worse than the 89.8 reading recorded in September 2001. That reading had been the weakest month on record before the current housing downturn."

From Reuters. "KB Home posted a quarterly loss on Tuesday with abandonment and impairment charges. The company recorded an after-tax noncash charge of $514.2 million to establish a valuation allowance related to deferred tax assets."

"KB Home also recorded $305.5 million in charges for inventory impairments, land option contract abandonments and impairments on future land sales. Joint venture impairments totaled $97.9 million."

"New home deliveries fell 22 percent to 8,132 in the quarter from a year earlier and the average selling price fell 11.5 percent to $247,800, KB Home said. For the just-completed quarter, net orders for new homes, an indicator of future sales, were off 32 percent at 2,574. Net orders were down in each geographic region."

"The cancellation rate for the quarter was unchanged at 58 percent from the year-earlier quarter, but up from the 50 percent reported in the third quarter of 2007."

From MarketWatch. "'The challenging market conditions we experienced through the first three quarters of 2007 continued during the fourth quarter,' said Jeffrey Mezger, KB Home's CEO. 'We believe 2008 will be another tough year for the homebuilding industry.'"

"'KB Home's speculative inventory, while in line with its peer group, has been increasing as cancellations have spiked in recent months,' wrote analysts at Majestic Research in a recent report."

"IndyMac Bancorp Inc's mortgage loan originations slumped 53 percent in November from a year earlier and may be hurt more as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tighten requirements on loans they purchase, the company said."

"'Growth in the pipeline and resulting production volume may be negatively impacted by further credit tightening currently being implemented by the GSEs that is requiring IndyMac to implement another round of credit guideline tightening,' the company said."

"Delinquencies on prime loans, which include those guaranteed by the GSEs, serviced by IndyMac rose to 6.25 percent in November from 5.8 in October, IndyMac said. In subprime, the percentage of loans in arrears for 30 or more days climbed to 26.87 percent in November from 24.43 percent in October."

The New York Daily News. "New York will gain just 500 jobs this year - if we're lucky - according to a scary new city forecast that sees slowdowns on Wall Street, stagnant real estate prices and an ocean of red ink in the city budget future."

"'The fiscal picture has dimmed considerably,' the Independent Budget Office spokesman Doug Turetsky told the Daily News yesterday. 'There is a fairly significant risk that things could get worse.'"

"If Wall Street loses even more money this year, the agency expects the city's jobs will shrink by 8,700 this year, rebounding by just 15,000 jobs next year - and that's if the national economy doesn't sink into a recession."

"'While there appears little reason to think our assumptions are too pessimistic, there is a reasonable chance that they are overly optimistic,' the IBO said."

"The city housing market also is projected to finally cool down as prices stagnate or fall and fewer homes and apartments change hands. Commercial real estate deals also are slowing down, the IBO says."

"'The Manhattan real estate market is still holding firm. The rest of the city is weakening,' Turetsky said. 'The good, strong corporate profits seem to be coming to an end.'"

""Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Monday the Bush administration was considering how to give the economy a boost as it weathers a housing correction, but does not want to rush. more stories like this"

"Paulson said a correction in the U.S. housing market...was 'inevitable and necessary' after years in which banks and other mortgage grantors followed 'lax' lending practices and prices had risen too quickly."

"Paulson said financial institutions were writing down the value of the assets they hold but insisted no one should be 'surprised or disappointed' to see that happening because the long-term effect will be to strengthen their balance sheets."

"'This is market discipline in action and should enhance market confidence over time,' the former Goldman Sachs CEO said."