Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Bloomberg, "Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., New Jersey's biggest homebuilder, on Monday reported its sixth consecutive quarterly loss. The loss widened to $131 million in the fiscal first quarter, which ended Jan. 31, the Red Bank-based builder said. The cash pinch has forced Hovnanian to slash prices in order to generate revenue. The company is trying to negotiate loan amendments before debt waivers expire Friday, Hovnanian has said."

"I't's hard to couch this. They may not make it through 2008,' said Vicki Bryan, a senior high-yield analyst for New York-based Gimme Credit LLC. 'The only way to generate cash is to sell inventory, and if you've cut your prices, then you've cut the value of your collateral, which is your unsold homes.'"

From MarketWatch. "Hovnanian's net contracts in the fiscal first quarter fell 41% to 1,511 contracts. The cancellation rate declined slightly to 38% from 40% in the fourth quarter."

"CEO Ara Hovnanian during a television interview Tuesday said he can't say the housing market has hit bottom and is ready for a recovery. 'It's not here at the moment yet,' he told CNBC."

"The Multifamily Condo Market Index ended 2007 on a low note, with the component of the index tracking builder confidence in current conditions standing at 18.8, down nearly 11 points from the same time a year ago, according to the National Association of Home Builders."

"'Given that the condo market became so overheated during the peak of the housing boom, it is not surprising that the market now continues to struggle, considering the difficulties in the mortgage sector and the fears about the economy in general,' said David Seiders, NAHB’s Chief Economist. 'It is going to take time for the extra inventory to be absorbed.'"

"A rating of 50 generally indicating that the number of positive responses is about the same as the number of negative responses. The component of the index that gauges current conditions in the condo market has not risen above 25 during any quarter of 2007."

"About two-thirds of builders reported lowering prices to bolster sales. The average price reduction was 11 percent. More than 70 percent of the respondents reported including optional items at no costs, paying closing costs or fees, or absorbing financial points for their buyers."

The Associated Press. "The loan you qualify for on Monday might be out of reach on Tuesday. Bankers and lenders are rapidly changing their requirements as home sales and prices plummet and delinquencies and defaults rise."

"'The market is reinventing itself daily,' said Les Berman, president of the California Association of Mortgage Brokers and owner of Beverly Hills-based EB Financial. 'I did my first loan in 1971 and have never seen anything like this.'"

"In early 2007, homebuyers with credit scores in the low 600s were able to get a mortgage that required no down payment simply by stating their income. Now, a credit score below 680 is a red flag that subjects the prospective borrower to higher rates and special fees."

"'Credit is the gateway right now,' said Dan Green, a certified mortgage planning specialist. 'Weak credit is cost-prohibitive.'"

"And regardless of credit score, customers are going to have to provide proof of income and assets in the bank. Lenders have drastically reduced the amount of money they will lend on any given purchase and also their maximum loan-to-value ratios."

"Last year, a borrower could get complete financing on a $300,000 home with a mortgage alone or in combination with a home- equity loan or a line of credit. Today, the same borrower likely needs $60,000 for a down payment or will face large fees and higher interest rates."

"Prices have dropped since last year when Greg Sax bought his St. Paul, Minn., home. But the 37-year-old first-time home buyer still feels lucky he made the move when he did. He was able to finance his purchase with no money down. And after talking with real-estate professionals...he's not so sure he'd be able to secure that 100% financing today."

"'If we had to put 10% or 20% down, we'd probably still be renting,' he said."

"Borrowers today are going to have to verify their income and verify their financial assets to lenders, said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac. 'It's the standards of maybe a decade ago,' he said."

"According to Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, a first-time buyer in many markets will soon need even more money down -- perhaps 10%. 'And I think before too long we're going to see it up to 15% to 20%,' he added."

All Headline News. "As the mortgage crisis is expected to worsen in the coming days, homeowners who could no longer keep up with monthly amortizations will simply mail in their keys, indicating willingness to give up their homes."

"Most of these borrowers are those who are indebted more than the value of their houses. Instead of attempting to arrange another payment scheme, they would rather throw the key in. The home abandonments are felt most in California, Florida and Nevada, areas marked by steep price declines."

"Freddie Mac says over half of owners of foreclosed homes did not answer the calls or letters of their lenders. An MBA analysis reveals that 23 percent of such types of loans were to mortgagees who no longer had contact with their lenders, while 18 percent more were to absentee homeowners."

"The dollar fell to a record (low) per euro as firms from Citigroup Inc. to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the Federal Reserve's plan to inject $200 billion into the banking system may fail to break the freeze in money-market lending."

"'The Fed is probably running out of options; the market is fixated on interest-rate differentials, which are clearly negative for the dollar,' said Paresh Upadhyaya, who helps manage $50 billion in currency assets as a senior vice president at Putnam Investments."

"'There is a reasonable risk that this Fed move reflects the depth of their concern with U.S. asset markets, not a Fed formula to resolve U.S. asset- market difficulties,' analysts led by Daniel Tenengauzer, New York-based head of global currency strategy at Merrill Lynch & Co., wrote in a research note today."

From Reuters. "A central bank plan to infuse the financial system with new cash is a temporary fix for the debilitated U.S. mortgage bond and housing markets, but not a cure."

"'This is a tourniquet, it will staunch the bleeding, but it may not turn us around and bring the patient to health,' said Susan Wachter, real estate and finance professor at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania."

"'This is designed to stop in its tracks what might otherwise be an old fashioned credit crunch where the banks simply themselves seize up,' Wachter said. 'It's not a sure fire end of the crisis by any means.'"

"This will be the first time the Fed takes non-agency residential mortgage bonds as auction collateral in its latest effort to add market liquidity. It already accepts this kind of paper as collateral from banks that borrow directly from the U.S. central bank at the discount window."

"The Fed's decision not to buy MBS outright limits the long-term upside for the bonds, several analysts agreed. The spread between benchmark 10-year Treasury notes that guides 30-year mortgage rates rose to 2.46 percentage points at the end of February from about 2.03 points a month earlier."

"The larger gap indicates lenders, which have seen lower prices on their loans in the MBS market, have been less willing to trim mortgage rates."

"'The immediate effect is nothing more than psychological,' Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, said of the Fed's plan."

"'The success of today's Fed announcement is something that will be judged over the next several months and it will perhaps be best judged by looking at the spread between Treasury yields and rates for both conforming, as well as jumbo mortgages,' he added. 'Both spreads have grown to the widest levels in decades just in recent weeks.'"

"Glarushiah Davis is afraid she'll lose her home because of an alleged predatory lending scheme. The 62-year-old retired social worker refinanced her $122,000 four-bedroom home in Minnesota four years ago, after a call from a lender."

"Since then, interests rates on her mortgage have ballooned, doubling her monthly payment of $750 to nearly $1,500, which she said she can't make much longer."

"'It is society's problem when you have families on the street,' she said. 'I've worked. I've paid taxes. I vote. Yet we're the ones getting shafted.'"

"Davis was one of nearly one hundred protesters with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, who stormed a Mortgage Bankers Association convention at a downtown Chicago hotel on Tuesday afternoon."

"The activists, wearing red T-shirts, chanting with megaphones and carrying signs, disrupted a PowerPoint presentation and presented a list of demands, including a foreclosure prevention bill."

"'Save our homes!' the protesters, who were from Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota and Michigan, yelled while circling dozens of bankers in suits."