Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Bloomberg, "D.R. Horton Inc. reported a record loss as the deepening housing slump forced it to write down $834.1 million of land and inventory. The fiscal second-quarter net loss at the largest U.S. homebuilder was $1.31 billion, almost seven times higher than analysts' estimates. Revenue plunged 38 percent to $1.62 billion."

"'Clearly in this past quarter we met the market and it was not a very pretty meeting and prices did decline in the quarter as we reported,' said D.R. Horton CEO Donald Tomnitz. The company is 'most concerned about the level of foreclosures entering the market and I think to the extent that those are significantly greater than what they are currently, then that's going to negatively impact our pricing moving forward.'"

"The backlog, or homes under contract and not yet sold, fell 47 percent to 8,947. The value of the backlog plunged 57 percent to $2.1 billion at the end of March. The average selling price for a completed home sale in the quarter fell 8 percent to $237,800 in the quarter, Tomnitz said on the call. For homes ordered, the average price fell 15 percent to $220,800, Tomnitz said."

From MarketWatch. "D.R. Horton's net sales orders fell to 7,528 homes from 9,983 homes a year ago. The cancellation rate, measured by cancelled sales orders divided by gross sales orders, was 33% in the fiscal second quarter. It owns or controls 181,000 lots, or a 5.2-year supply."

The Associated Press. "St. Joe Co., a Florida real estate developer, said Tuesday total residential sales plunged to $17.6 million from $37 million a year earlier. Rural land sales leaped to $91.1 million from $46.7 million in the first quarter of 2007."

"'With the U.S. and Florida economies battling rising home foreclosures, a tightening of credit and a significant inventory of unsold homes, predicting when residential real estate markets will return to health remains difficult,' said CEO Peter S. Rummell."

"'Consumer confidence is declining and many consumers seem to be deferring residential real estate purchases until there is more economic clarity,' said Rummell."

"Bovis Homes Group Plc, the U.K.'s most profitable homebuilder, said first-half profit will be 'significantly' lower than forecast after a 30 percent drop in orders."

"Reservations since March 10 fell to 1,382 from 1,979 a year earlier, the Longfield, England-based company said today. Demand for private homes plunged 70 percent and prices may be cut in some markets, CEO Malcolm Harris said in an interview."

"Bovis' properties range from a one-bedroom apartment in Cambridgeshire, selling for 204,950 pounds, to a five-bedroom detached home in Reading, priced at almost half a million pounds. The company has reduced selling prices by 10 percent in Cardiff Bay, Wales, because of an oversupply of apartments, Harris said."

"'The last eight weeks have been particularly difficult,' the CEO said. 'The availability and pricing of mortgages is creating an enormous problem. First-time buyers are virtually priced out of the market. We've had people who have come along and reserved on a mortgage offer and then gone back to the lender and found that withdrawn.'"

The BBC News. "About 150 estate agents' branches are now closing every week in the UK, according to research. The number of properties changing hands has fallen sharply in the past 12 months. And Bank of England figures show that the number of new mortgages approved in March was the lowest since records began in 1999."

"'There is money out there,' said Jeremy Leaf, from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. 'But even more creditworthy borrowers are being told that they need a more hefty deposit or they wont be able to get the mortgage they want.'"

The New Zealand Herald. "The Auckland property market has virtually ground to a halt and prices are falling, fresh figures from the city's biggest real estate agency group suggest."

"Barfoot & Thompson has reported sales fell to 453 in April, down 50 per cent from April a year ago and down 28 per cent from 632 sales in March. The number of new listings in the month was almost quadruple the number of houses that actually sold in April."

"The average sale price reported by the firm in April fell to NZ$520,380 and is now down 7 per cent from its peak of NZ$559,903 in December last year. The number of houses listed as available for sale rose to 7,843 at the end of April from 7,379 at the end of March and was 76 per cent higher than a year ago."

The Northern Life from Canada. "This city's housing market remains hot. New Sudbury house price gains (for a typical 1,130 square foot bungalow) from last year to the present, lead the province, according to Century 21."

"That bungalow on a 60 by 132 foot lot, with three bedrooms and two baths, sold for $175,000 in 2007 but has climbed to $237,000 in 2008 – an increase of 35 per cent. Remarkably, in second place, was Val Caron."

"Rick Lymer, Ontario regional economist with the federal government, does not think the good times are a bubble. 'Certainly not for housing when you look at the low interest rates. It is a good time to buy a house. I see no sign of this housing surge slowing down,' he said."

"For years few houses were being built, and now there is not enough supply in place to meet the increase in demand, he said."

The Star from Canada. "The spring rebound anticipated by realtors in the Toronto area market hasn't happened – at least not yet. Existing-home sales in April were down by 7 per cent from the record highs of last year, with 8,762 homes sold, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board."

"This is the fourth-consecutive month of declining home sales. April was considered a bellwether since it was the first month of good weather after one of the coldest and snowiest winters in recent years. Most analysts had expected pent- up demand to emerge in the spring market as potential homebuyers were hampered by slush and snow in the first quarter of the year."

"Inventory, in the form of new listings, was also up significantly in April. It advanced by 18 per cent to 18,691 as sellers hoped the better weather would bring buyers out. 'With affordability the lowest in 17 years, the housing market should continue to cool, despite recent declines in mortgage rates,' said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns."

The Edmonton Journal from Canada. "If you were selling a 'typical' home this time last year, chances are it lasted 22 days on the market before someone bought it. You got $413,488 for it. That was then. This is now."

"Selling a typical home these days? Chances are you'll wait, and wait, for 52 days before selling. And the payoff? About $28,000 less for your single-family detached house than if you'd sold it last year -- an average of $386,033, according to monthly figures for April released Monday by the Realtors Association of Edmonton."

"Condos, duplexes and rowhouses also dipped in average price, and thickets of 'For Sale' signs seemingly stand outside every multi-family development."

"Richard Goatcher, Edmonton senior market analyst for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation: 'As we went into 2006, we went into sort of an overheating, accelerating market because demand outstripped supply, so for most of 2006 and four months of 2007 we had record-level price increases and a lot of speculative activity and high levels of new construction.'"

"There are 10,606 residential properties currently on MLS, up 12 per cent from last month. Why so many? Pat Adams, a condominium builder and president of the local branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association: 'In 2005, if you could put up a house you could sell it.'"

"'What happened to us in the industry is that it started taking longer to build and it cost more to build. Now, we've got an affordability problem and you've got an oversupply problem because one of the answers to a rapid increase in costs is to build as fast as you can. That means you're going to end up with unsold houses if the market turns, and that's what happened,' he said."

"Should I buy now or wait? Marc Perras, president of the Realtors Association of Edmonton.: 'I think it's a great time to buy now.'"

"Should I sell now or hold? Perras: 'It's tough to answer carte blanche. I've been telling people if you're testing the market, you may want to wait for a different year to do that in.'"

"Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage- finance company, reported a wider loss than analysts estimated. Fannie Mae needs new capital to weather credit and derivative losses that rose fivefold to $8.9 billion."

"Fannie Mae, under new standards, listed $56.1 billion in so- called Level 3 assets, a category which indicates the holdings are so illiquid that they can only be priced using the firm's own valuation models. This is the first quarter Fannie Mae has been required to disclose such assets."

"A key House lawmaker on Monday complained that the mortgage industry has done little over the past month to make higher-value loans available in costly housing markets after Congress took steps to try to infuse more cash into the so-called jumbo market."

"'I am disappointed,' Rep. Barney Frank said in response to an audience question after a speech to a Mortgage Bankers Association convention. 'We fought very hard to raise the loan limits for Fannie and Freddie, and there have been a lot of problems in implementation.'"

"Jay Brinkman, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association, said Wall Street investors have been cautious to invest in jumbo mortgages under the new higher cap until the market determines how to properly price such securities and assess their risks."

"'You don't want to guess on the low side,' Brinkman said. 'If you make a mistake in this environment ... you can take a serious price hit.'"

From Money Magazine. "Can a couple coats of paint, some spackle and $15 billion keep foreclosed homes from bringing down the home market? A housing-rescue bill moving through Congress would allocate $7.5 billion in grants and $7.5 billion in zero-interest loans to states to buy foreclosed homes, rehab them, and resell them."

"In 2002, the city of Baltimore started to buy abandoned properties in an effort dubbed 'Project 5,000' for the number of homes it wanted to purchase. Now, the city owns more than 10,000 vacant properties but hasn't found an efficient way to unload them."

"Relative to the foreclosure crisis, $15 billion is a drop in the bucket. According to foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac, about 650,000 foreclosure filings on properties were submitted in the first quarter. If the $15 billion were used just to buy homes with an average price of $100,000, states could purchase 150,000 homes."

"Some worry that cities would be getting in over their heads. 'I don't buy that it's going to work,' said Vincent Valvo, group publisher of The Warren Group. 'If cities were good at buying, selling, and developing things, we wouldn't need private developers.'"

"Countrywide Financial Corp. has suspended the home equity credit lines of almost all its Las Vegas customers. Since January, Countrywide, Bank of America Corp., Washington Mutual Inc. and IndyMac Bancorp Inc. have frozen about 600,000 equity credit lines nationwide, said Michael Kratzer, president of a Bankrate Inc.-owned Web site that's fielding consumer complaints."

"Homeowners' pain is acute in Las Vegas, where property values soared 50 percent or more during 2004 and 2005 and since have plummeted. The Las Vegas housing-market crash represents a turnaround since 2003, when the local economy and real estate were booming."

"'If you had anything on the ball, you could make it happen in Vegas,' said real estate agent Donna Marie Gold, who built a $4.5 million fortune buying and selling properties over six years."

"After failing to complete a single sale last year, Gold said she fell $22,000 short each month on payments needed to maintain 14 properties. Now two to four months behind on some mortgage payments, she's lost access to a $250,000 Wells Fargo & Co. equity credit line."

"'The whole thing was upside down in a New York minute,' Gold said. 'There needs to be some forgiveness in this climate with regards to credit and rebuilding one's credit.'"

"John Simon, borrowed $35,000 on low-interest credit cards in 2007 to pay down his $63,000 credit line and save on the 11.75 percent interest he says Countrywide charged. He expected to be able to access the credit line later. When Countrywide froze the line, he wasn't able to get money needed to pay his bills."

"'They took away the last amount of cash I had to make all the payments on my father's retirement home,' Simon said. 'From a business standpoint, this was the stupidest thing I ever did. But it was so easy.'"

From Newsweek. "Whenever a boom goes bust, there's always a round of finger pointing and blame assigning. And at least a few observers include an industry economist in this lineup: David Lereah, the former chief forecaster for the National Association of Realtors, whose irrational exuberance for real estate has led to some measure of ridicule."

"It's been more than a year since Lereah left NAR, so I called this week to check in. His answer: not yet. 'We're not at the bottom,' he says. '[People] want it to be near the bottom, but we're not there yet. The leading indicators are still very bad. Pending home sales are still in bad shape. Mortgage applications are low … There's still supply out there in abundance … This thing is going to get worse before it gets better.'"