Although May 6 saw an editorial entitled "The Housing Crisis is Over" in The Wall Street Journal, Seeking Alpha points to growth in the aging population combined with a flatlining home buying age bracket as evidence that the national housing climate could remain challenging for another 15 years. For that story and more, check out Big Builder's bi-weekly roundup of the latest in opinion and commentary across the Web.
Based on housing starts data since 1972, March 2008's dip below the one million mark may signal the elusive bottom--as every time starts have fallen to that level in the last 50 years, it has signaled the bottom of a housing recession, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Housing Bubble weighs in as David Lereah--former National Association of Realtors chief economist and once the housing boom's biggest cheerleader--proclaims that the bottom is far from near and that things will get worse as prices have farther to fall.
Clearance pricing continues to be the order of the day in such markets as Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and South Dakota, according to The Housing Bubble.
On the heels of Zillow.com's announcement that 51.6% of homeowners nationwide who purchased during the home value peak of 2006 are now underwater on their mortgage, BusinessWeek's Hot Property reports that that number is 89.9% in Las Vegas and 95.8% in Stockton, Calif.
Inman News takes a look at Senator Chris Dodd's "Hope for Homeowners Act," a proposed $400 billion expansion of FHA loan guarantee programs.
Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust takes on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's claims that the credit crisis is waning, pointing to decreased lending activity on the part of banks--both to each other as well as to corporations.
