Mortgage Crisis

Greenwich, Connecticut is a rich enclave of hedge fund managers- and thus is feeling the pain of the current financial crisis like a ton of bricks. Ned Lamont, a Greenwich resident who ran for Senate in 2006, says, 'This is our Katrina.'

HUD Secretary Steven Preston said this week that the U.S. is facing a 'fundamental oversupply' of houses, which will continue to weigh down the economy.

The government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will likely bring lower interest rates, but tighter eligibility requirements and stricter monitoring of underwriting.

A foreclosed home in Lake Elsinore, CA has attracted some new residents- a family of bobcats.

Boston, Minneapolis and San Diego are flipping houses in an effort to prevent neighborhood blight- a strategy that appears to be working.

Witold Rybczynski wrote The Last Harvest about a new development being created in an exurban cornfield. NPR visits the half-finished community with Witold, which is suffering from the economic crisis.

While the mortgage crisis has hit hard in California and other prosperous regions, the cities that are sliding fastest into decline are still in the Rust Belt, with disappearing populations and bleak job prospects.

Early buyers in new housing developments are finding themselves stranded in virtual ghost towns as developers go belly up.

Friends of the Earth president Brent Blackwelder and journalist James S. Henry believe that the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needs to come with some very green strings attached.

Exurban developments are struggling to control their rampant foreclosure rates and plummeting housing values.

The Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae crisis is resurrecting the debate over the role the federal government should play in the housing market.

Indianapolis has a growing problem with abandoned houses. To fight the blight, they're now selling the homes online.

Congress is promising to pass before Independence Day a sweeping set of housing legislation that would offer refinancing packages, a trust fund for affordable rental housing and offer tax credits for purchasing unoccupied houses.

Paul Krugman writes that we need to stop conflating owing a home with citizenship.

In this excerpt from his forthcoming book, Subprime Solution, economist Robert J. Shiller writes of our tendency to succumb to "bubble thinking," and the role this has played in the current mortgage crisis.

With gas and food prices climbing to unprecedented levels, many families are turning to pawnshops to cover their bills. Unfortunately, pickups are down and people aren't buying, putting smaller operations at risk of closure.

A new AIA report shows that new homes under construction are getting smaller in response to market forces.

CNN reports on the growing chaos in suburbs emptied by the mortgage crisis, and what they tell us about the future of the American dream.

As the U.S. Congress and Senate wrangle with each other over how to address the housing crisis, housing advocates worry that federal assistance- if and when it comes- will be inadequate.

A recent report by a Federal Reserve Bank senior economist argues that Houston's resiliency during the ongoing housing crisis is due in part to its lack of zoning regulations.