NAR - "NAR, Mayors Recognize San Diego For Helping Everyday Heroes Become Homeowners" (8-29-07)

"The National Association of Realtors® and the U.S. Conference of Mayors have designated San Diego a 2007 Ambassador City for its Everyday Heroes program. Everyday Heroes helps San Diego police officers become homeowners, and was created by the San Diego Association of Realtors® Ambassadors Foundation and the San Diego Police Officer's Association."

MBA - "Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey" (8-29-07)

"The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 24, 2007. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 615.2, a decrease of 4.0 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 641.1 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 5.3 percent compared with the previous week and was up 10.6 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.'

Financial Times - "Obama unveils radical mortgage plan" (8-29-07)

"Unscrupulous lenders who deceptively sold subprime mortgages to millions of Americans should be fined and the proceeds used to help bail out borrowers facing a wave of foreclosures, according to Barack Obama, the Democratic senator running to be his party’s presidential candidate."

Market Watch - "Week-to-week mortgage applications off 4.0%" (8-29-07)

"The number of mortgage applications filed last week slipped 4.0% from the previous week, while the average interest rate on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages shot up, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. Also on a seasonally adjusted basis, applications for mortgages to purchase homes were down 4.0% on a week-to-week basis, according to the group's latest survey. And applications for loans to refinance existing mortgages were down 4.2% in the week ended Aug. 24"

CNN - "Subprime Mortgages: State by State" (8-29-07)

A map of the United States, which displays foreclosure statistics

The San Diego Union Tribune - "Nation's home prices plunge" (8-29-07)

"Prices of U.S. homes fell 3.2 percent in the second quarter, the steepest rate of decline since Standard & Poor's began its nationwide housing index in 1987, the research group said yesterday. San Diego's 7.3 percent drop from the second quarter of 2006 ranked it third among metropolitan areas with the biggest price declines, behind Detroit's 11 percent decline and Tampa's 7.7 percent pullback."

Bloomberg - "`Subprime Chuck' Schumer Plays Fool in Crisis" (8-29-07)

"It's bad enough when a company's outside auditor is a pushover for management. Equally galling would be for the auditor to try telling management how to run the company. Yet that's what U.S. Senator Charles Schumer has asked the Big Four accounting firms to do at the subprime lenders they audit, pronto. 'One of the most promising solutions to the anticipated foreclosure crisis is the voluntary modification by lenders of existing unsustainable subprime loans,' Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in an Aug. 23 letter to the firms' top executives."

Reuters - "Subprime inflicts new damage as banks seek cash" (8-29-07)

"New evidence of damage wrought by the U.S. mortgage sector surfaced in the United States and Europe on Wednesday while banks demanded a record amount of cash at a euro zone money market auction. Cheyne Finance, a structured investment vehicle (SIV) managed by hedge fund Cheyne Capital Management, said it was seeking to restructure after being forced to start selling assets to pay down debt."

Seeking Alpha - "Consumer Credit: The Next Bubble?" (8-29-07)

"If there was a Wall St. zodiac, this year would probably be dubbed 'The Year of the Bursting Bubble'. Late 2006/early 2007 saw the markets accepting the end of the housing boom, then we had the subprime crisis followed by Alt-a mortgages and the realization that we had a full-fledged mortgage crisis. On the corporate credit front, we were hit with the credit crunch/liquidity crisis and the end of the buyout boom. Judging by some recent events and the Q2 earnings reports of the retail banks and other major lenders, an overall consumer credit bubble may be next."

Forbes - "Contraction in housing market to be worse than expected in rest of 2007" (8-29-07)

"Fitch Ratings said the contraction in the US housing market is likely to be more severe than anticipated during the rest of 2007, mainly due to tighter mortgage standards and disrupted mortgage markets. The rating agency added it sees 2008 to be another challenging year for the housing sector, as it expects operational and financial pressures not only to persist but to intensify for public homebuilders."

Bloomberg - "Fed Underestimated Debt Impact, Focused on Inflation" (8-29-07)

"Federal Reserve officials, underestimating the impact of credit-market turmoil, focused at their Aug. 7 meeting on inflation and slowing productivity. Minutes of the session released yesterday showed that the Fed was intent on securing credibility as an inflation fighter just 18 months into Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's term. Even though the central bank cut the discount rate on Aug. 17, the emphasis on prices forms the backdrop for deliberations next month."

The Washington Post - "Home Buyers Forced to Change Tactics" (8-29-07)

"Rattled investors have become reluctant to buy loans for more than that amount -- known as jumbo mortgages -- and that in turn has pushed some lenders to raise interest rates. Caught in the middle are potential home buyers who are getting walloped by higher rates or shut out of the market. The phenomenon is particularly significant in Washington, where half the homes sell for more than $417,000. Here, home buyers are figuring out how to adapt to the new circumstances by making larger down payments or splitting their purchase into two loans to dodge higher rates. Others are sitting tight until the rates go down."

Yahoo - "Subprime Mortgage Woes Spreading" (8-29-07)

"The subprime mortgage crisis is spreading to a somewhat unexpected place: homes costing more than $500,000. As lending has rapidly gotten more restrictive for borrowers taking out large loans, sales of expensive homes have fallen sharply around the country during what should be one of the busiest seasons for buyers and sellers, mortgage bankers and real estate agents say."