Sign On San Diego - "Real estate cheerleader concedes price drop" (4-15-07)

" Satan must be shoveling snow out of his driveway, because the underworld has frozen over. By that I mean that the National Association of Realtors has finally conceded that home prices are falling nationwide. Last week, the association – the top real estate booster in the country after Donald Trump – forecast that the median home price would slide 0.7 percent this year. David Lereah, the association's chief economist, predicted that home prices will rebound next year, with a 1.6 percent rise. But after adjusting for inflation, that will mark the third straight year of declines for real estate. (Last year's 1 percent rise in nationwide home prices was negated by the 3.2 percent inflation rate. The median dropped 0.8 percent in San Diego County, even without adjusting for inflation.) "

Sign On San Diego - "An unsettling adjustment" (4-15-07)

"Facing a big jump in payments, couple feels trapped"

OC Register - "How New Century ran out of money" (4-15-07)

"Some say it got caught in the perfect storm. Others say it ran into the rocks."

Sign On San Diego - "Borrowers are caught in backlash over loan defaults" (4-15-07)

"Critics say the tough new underwriting standards that were imposed to prop up the sagging subprime mortgage market are harming some creditworthy borrowers by trapping them in high-cost loans. Reacting to a nationwide spike in subprime loan defaults, lenders recently raised their requirements for loans to borrowers with low credit scores. Some analysts say the industry is overreacting. "

OC Register - "Insider Q&A with head of Mortgage Bankers Association on lending crisis" (4-15-07)

"I got on the phone with John Robbins, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, and one of the first things he said was that loan underwriting standards became too lax. I expected to grill him a bit before getting such an admission – I guess there’s no questioning its veracity now. He noted the use of no income, no asset verification loans to subprime borrowers as particularly reckless. "