Some housing bubble news from Wall Street, Washington and the world. AP, "Red Bank, N.J.-based Hovnanian posted a fiscal second-quarter loss of $340.7 million. That compared with a loss of about $30.7 million in the same period a year earlier. Quarterly revenue fell 30 percent to $776 million from $1.1 billion in the same period last year. Hovnanian said its net contracts for the second quarter, excluding joint ventures, declined 29 percent."

"Some homebuilders are looking to Congress to help ease the housing doldrums. In a conference call with analysts, Toll Brothers CEO Robert Toll called on Congress to give would-be homebuyers a tax incentive to buy a new home, saying that should be a higher priority than addressing problem mortgages that are leading to rising foreclosures."

"Chad Dreier, CEO of homebuilder Ryland Group Inc., is also looking for Congress to dole out some relief to the homebuilding industry. Believe me, we need some tail winds,' Dreier said."

"Asked when new home sales would bottom out, Dreier responded: 'I don't have a clue.'"

"The CEO of Toll Brothers Inc., the nation's largest luxury-home builder, said Wednesday the housing industry is in a 'depression' and any recovery could be two or three years away."

"In candid remarks at the JPMorgan Basics & Industrials Conference a day after reporting a second-quarter loss, Robert Toll said he's not ready to call a bottom yet since the housing market could still get worse. 'Can the market go down another 10 or 20 percent? Sure,' said Toll."

The Philly Burbs. "Toll said Congress should 'jump-start demand' by offering temporary tax incentives for homebuyers. ...With a little motivation, the new-home market could turn around.'"

"Toll said Congress should concentrate on driving up the demand for — and prices of — homes, rather than shoring up people's mortgages."

"'Going about it by trying to give money to [the Federal Housing Administration], we're attacking it backwards,' he said. 'To try to attack the credit and mortgage problem first is the same as trying to get rid of strep throat with lozenges as opposed to antibiotics. The problem is the down price in homes. If home prices go down, it doesn't matter if you've given the guy a new mortgage.'"

The St Louis Post Dispatch. "It took decades for Taylor-Morley Homes Inc. to become a perennial top 10 builder in the region, but less than two years for its downfall. The 56-year-old Creve Coeur-based homebuilder shut its doors Friday, becoming the latest - and one of the largest - local builders to fall prey to the turmoil in the housing industry."

"CEO Bill Taylor blamed the market - and himself - for the reversal in the company's fortunes. 'About 70 percent of our problems were related to the market and 30 percent was because we were too slow to react,' Taylor said. 'We were too slow to see the downturn, and the six or eight extra months it took us to react, really hurt us.'"

"'I couldn't pay the banks, the staff, the rent and insurance and all that,' he said. 'We had too much land inventory and too much debt.'"

"Taylor said he has paid more than 95 percent of the money he owed to his subcontractors. While a few liens remain outstanding, some subcontractors say they never doubted they would be paid. 'I had the option to simply close the company and walk away,' he said. 'But I wasn't raised that way.'"

The Review Journal. "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

"That's not just an endless series of queries from road-weary kids on summer vacation. It's also become the plaintive cry of local homeowners desperately seeking the bottom of a housing market that has shed more than 20 percent of its value in the last year. Las Vegas homeowners could have their answer soon."

"A Monday report, plus a few springtime indicators thrown in for good measure, hints that the city's housing market may be at or near its nadir."

"'I know what it costs to build a home, and these homes can't be replaced at the prices they're being sold for,' said local home builder Tom McCormick. 'We builders have been arguing for a long time that we can't build homes at the prices they're being sold for. By definition, (the decline) can't go farther.'"

The Bunbury Mail from Australia. "Bunbury has the 20th worst postcode for missed mortgage payments in Western Australia and sits just below the national average."

"REIWA Bunbury chairwoman Roslyn Ierace said she saw a house sold for almost $90,000 less than the price the owners had bought it for and valued another for close to $100,000 below what it cost to build."

"Meanwhile, there are about 2,500 homes up for sale with some being sold for about $100,000 less than the price owners paid for them in the past two years."

The Calgary Sun from Canada. "Over the past 10 years, the price for a Mount Royal condo has shot up by more than 363% to $555,833, while the price of a bungalow in Scarboro has risen by more than 271% to $595,000."

"Condos in Edmonton's Castledowns area hold the national record with a 633% increase over the past decade."

"Such figures don't surprise Ted Zaharko, owner of Royal LePage Foothills, who said most of the spectacular rise in prices over the past decade is due to price spikes in the past two years."

"'The city is very flush in many respects. The oilpatch has made it very flush. And so the activity that we're getting on large-priced homes is tremendous,' he said. 'Those aren't signs of people ... nervous about the economy.'"

The Calgary Herald from Canada. "In 1998, single-family homes in the Calgary census metropolitan area averaged $167,555 while condos were $118,218, said Lai Sing Louie, senior market analyst in Calgary for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp."

"'It's hard to imagine that prices were that cheap back then,' he said."

"By 2007, the average price for a single-family home was $451,034 and for condos it was $314,959."

The Ottawa Citizen. "The price of Ottawa condominium housing has jumped faster than the national average in the last decade. A new study by Royal LePage Real Estate Services predicts that demand for condos in the urban core will continue to grow as a result of rising gas prices and the appeal of downtown living."

"Royal LePage spokesman Pierre de Varennes said in a statement 'with a high proportion of Ottawa's workforce employed by the government, with offices in the downtown core, it's not surprising that house prices in city's urban neighbourhoods have appreciated as much as they have.'"

"He said that minimizing travel to work increases family time and lowers gas costs, making the urban choice attractive. 'Many people view the higher cost of living in urban areas simply as the price tag for increased personal time.'"

The Toronto Star from Canada. "It's no secret that Torontonians have flocked back to the downtown core for housing over the past decade. 'Home prices in urban areas have gone up more than in suburban areas, but both have shown significant appreciation,'said senior VP of Royal LePage Gino Romanese. 'But from a purely investment perspective you would have done well to put your money downtown.'"

"'One reason for the spike in appreciation is maturing baby boomers looking to downsize their empty nests to something that requires less maintenance' while staying in their neighbourhoods, says the study."

"The top suburban location in Canada was a condo in Sherwood Park in Edmonton at 417 per cent, while a standard two-storey home in Warman in Saskatoon is up 305 per cent in the past 10 years."

The Edmonton Sun. "House prices have taken a hit but the Realtors Association of Edmonton says there's good news on the horizon. 'Our view of the market is that it is stable and is slowly rising,' said association spokesman Jon Hall."

"Compared to May 2007, the average price of a single-family dwelling in Edmonton has dropped $42,861, from $426,028 to $383,167."

"But the numbers show a massive increase in prices from two years ago, when the same house would have been worth $282,208. Prices began a sharp rise two years ago, hitting a peak late last spring before settling, said Hall."

"'It's like overrunning first base. Prices kept climbing for a while, then they stopped and fell back to around the $380,000 range, generally, and they're stable around that rate,' he said."

The Scotsman. "Scotland has seen a 20 per cent slump in the number of new home loans, according to the first in-depth report from the Council of Mortgage Lenders on the housing market north of the Border."

"John Brown, director of DTZ in Scotland, has created a radical ten-point plan with which he plans to lobby the government and says would give the market a boost."

"Mr Brown said: 'We are in a cycle of property prices now. We have had a brilliant ten to 12 years. Everybody has got used to continued house-price growth, and that cannot continue. However, if the government put some of these measures in place, it would give the struggling market a boost.'"

The BBC News. "Residents in the picturesque seaside village of Llanrhystud in Ceredigion gave their impressions of the rural housing problem. Carer David Power said he was renting a privately-owned home because he could not afford a mortgage."

"'I'm renting because I can't afford to buy,' he said."

"Bus driver Colin Evans and his hospital office manager partner Bethan Williams have a mortgage on a property they bought a couple of years ago in Llanrhystud. 'Costs are going up and I can't see how first time buyers are going to get on the property ladder,' said Ms Williams."

"Mr Evans said: 'Even professional people who are earning high wages, like doctors, can't afford mortgages. I have a property in Aberystwyth which I rent to a doctor who is in that position. If professional people can't afford mortgages then how can a person on an average wage be expected to?'"

The Independent. "The idea that yesterday's collapse in Irish banking shares comes as a shock to the markets is nonsense. Anyone with a basic knowledge of how economies work should understand that banks get hammered when housing markets go into reverse."

"The banks, by lending recklessly in the boom, will now bear the brunt of the slump. During the boom, anyone who questioned the logic of betting the nation's cash on the housing market was dismissed as a crank."

"Now it is becoming apparent that the banks in Ireland ceased being banks some year ago and transformed themselves into leveraged gamblers on property."

"This process ultimately turns into a Ponzi scheme, where the entire system is based on getting more and more people to borrow money so that the valuations can be sustained."

"It's the middle of the work day, but Iveta Vitkovska's notary office in the heart of Riga's Art Nouveau shopping district is dead calm."

"Just a year ago, there was a waiting list at notaries throughout the city as Latvians hustled to seal promising real estate deals. But an economic malaise in the Baltics has put an end to that."

"'Things have definitely slowed down in the last few months,' said Vitkovska, reduced to organizing files in her office, located on a cobblestoned street where streetcars rumble past designer-name boutiques - dozens of which are now closing due to rampant rent increases and sluggish sales."

"Over at Paus Konsults, a debt collection firm in the same neighborhood, business is booming. Director Marcis Katajs said Latvia's banks submitted more than 6,500 new overdue debt cases in April, up 45 percent from February. There are about 200,000 such cases in the firm's database, extraordinary for a country of 2.3 million people."

"Little Latvia, along with its neighbors Estonia and Lithuania, is in an economic free-fall...after four years of thunderous expansion."

"While the boom lasted, it was astonishing. From 2004 to 2007, Estonia's economy ballooned 42 percent, and Latvia's grew by an incredible 50 percent - by far the best results in the European Union."

"Baltic consumers embarked on a borrow-and-spend binge by taking advantage of cheap, accessible loans. They bought new Toyotas, refurnished their apartments and vacationed on the Mediterranean. By the end of 2007, bank lending in Latvia skyrocketed to 93 percent of gross domestic product, up from 39 percent four years earlier."

"Just as in the United States, rising housing prices created a feel-good environment of perpetual wealth, and Latvians returned to the banks to borrow more. Amazingly, many borrowed from several banks at once. Very few even thought of saving."

"'It is our common problem. The savings cushion for hard times is very small, if there is any at all,' said Ainars Ozols, chairman of SEB Banka, Latvia's second-largest bank. He said that only 10 percent of SEB Banka's customers have savings."

"But it was real estate that really fed the tigers as Latvians bought land, homes and apartments. The construction sector boomed - and property values were propelled skyward."

"The price of a new apartment in suburban Riga tripled in four years, according to Ober-Haus Real Estate. And since capital gains on property deals in Latvia were not taxed, Latvians and foreigners alike jumped in on the action."

"'We have cab drivers who are real estate specialists,' Katajs said."