The Wall Street Journal - "Bush Unveils Plan to Address Mortgage Market 'Excesses'" (8-31-07)

"Addressing worries that a subprime mortgage meltdown could prompt a further wave of defaults and foreclosures in the U.S., President Bush unveiled a host of proposals Friday to help struggling homeowners, but warned that the federal government won't bail out real estate speculators. Flanked by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, Mr. Bush called on lawmakers to reform the Federal Housing Administration, temporarily change a tax provision that's hitting homeowners, and bring better transparency to the often opaque mortgage market."

NAR - "NAR President Issues Statement on Bush's Proposed FHA Changes" (8-31-07)

"Pat V. Combs, 2007 president of the National Association of Realtors®, released the following statement in support of Federal Housing Administration policy changes proposed today by President George W. Bush: 'The National Association of Realtors® strongly commends President Bush for his leadership in proposing a set of policies designed to ease the crisis in the mortgage industry and halt the rapidly increasing rate of foreclosures affecting many American families today.'"

CBIA - "New California Homes More Energy-Efficient Than Ever" (8-31-07)

"As Californians once again face power alerts, California homebuilders remind prospective buyers that today’s new homes use far less energy than homes built 15 to 20 years ago and far less energy than homes being built today in any other part of the nation."

Bloomberg - "Lone Star Cuts Offer for Accredited to $214 Million" (8-31-07)

"Lone Star Funds cut its takeover offer for Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. by 44 percent to $214 million, after the subprime mortgage company fired 60 percent of its workers and stopped making new loans. Lone Star offered $8.50 a share, 35 percent more than yesterday's closing price, to defuse a legal scuffle that followed its attempt to back out of an earlier acquisition agreement with San Diego-based Accredited."

Herald Tribune - "More cutbacks for Lennar" (8-31-07)

"Lennar Corp., the big Miami home builder that reported a $255 million loss in the most recent quarter, has trimmed more than 60 additional positions from its Southwest Florida division, bringing it to its pre-housing-boom levels, an executive said. The cuts this week included Rob Allegra, the division president of Lennar Sarasota/Manatee, who has been the face of the home builder locally for more than a decade."

The Washington Post - "Forestalling Foreclosures" (8-31-07)

"Considering the projections for the number of home foreclosures in the next couple of years -- estimates now start at 1 million annually and go up from there -- you'd have thought there might be more ideas floating around for dealing with this economic, social and political calamity. We've had lots of brave talk from regulators and politicians about taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Yahoo - "Fed Chief Vows to Protect the Economy" (8-31-07)

"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke vowed Friday to do all that is necessary to protect the national economy from the ill effects of a global credit crunch -- but not to bail out investors and lenders 'from the consequences of their financial decisions.' President Bush confidently predicted the country would safely weather the financial storm."

The Federal Reserve Board - "Remarks by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke" (8-31-07)

"Over the years, Tom Hoenig and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City have done an excellent job of selecting interesting and relevant topics for this annual symposium. I think I can safely say that this year they have outdone themselves. Recently, the subject of housing finance has preoccupied financial-market participants and observers in the United States and around the world. The financial turbulence we have seen had its immediate origins in the problems in the subprime mortgage market, but the effects have been felt in the broader mortgage market and in financial markets more generally, with potential consequences for the performance of the overall economy."

Bloomberg - "Bush Pledges FHA Help for Subprime Borrowers" (8-31-07)

"President George W. Bush today pledged to help people who've fallen behind in their mortgages keep their homes and to tighten safeguards against predatory lending, while rejecting a bailout for 'speculators.' 'I plan to help homeowners, the government's got a role to play,' Bush said in a statement at the White House. But, he said, 'it's not the government's job to bail out speculators, or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford.'"

The San Diego Union Tribune - "Credit innovation sowed subprime woes, study says" (8-31-07)

"While innovations in mortgage finance expanded home ownership around the world, they also sowed the seeds of the current U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, economists told a Federal Reserve conference on Friday."

Orange County Register - "O.C. home values fell in 2nd quarter" (8-31-07)

"The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight on Thursday said Orange County home values in the second quarter fell at a 1.62 percent annual rate. That's the first decline in this Orange County index since the first quarter of 1997 and the biggest drop since the second quarter of 1995."