Homes prices may be down, but rental prices are up and landlords are happy about that.Rental prices are rising in the vast majority of markets in the United States, putting a financial strain of the nearly one-third of Americans who rent rather than own their homes.
There are two main drivers behind higher rents. One is demand for rentals from people who are either worried about buying a home that will fall in value or are hesitating to buy because home prices still remain too high. The other is tighter lending …

As the housing slump worsens in many parts of the country, Realtors don’t have qualified buyers to work with and seller’s homes are not selling or staying on the market for longer time periods, thus making it very difficult to earn a living anymore.
Real estate agents across the country are leaving the business as the sales downturn worsens. The National Association of Realtors is predicting a 4 percent decline in its membership by the end of 2007, from a record high of 1.4 million members at the beginning of this …

Q3 profits for Washington Mutual Inc., the largest U.S. savings and loan, plummeted 72%, hurt by mounting mortgage losses, largely due to the housing slump.
Housing difficulties helped push profit down 18% at its retail banking unit and cause a $348-million loss in its home loans unit, compared with a $23-million loss a year earlier. Earnings fell in all four of the thrift's units.
WAMU experienced a significant falloff mid-2007 and it has continued in the fourth quarter, accelerated by the lack of liquidity in the capital markets.
"We are not making projections …

The chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association, Doug Duncan, expects national median home prices to fall between 2 percent and 4 percent both this year and next.
The states to be hardest hit include California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois.
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Real Estate Investors – Proceed with Caution
Caution should be exercised if you plan on buying real estate in the states that will experience the deepest price cuts.  I recommend you target discount or distressed property like pre-foreclosures, foreclosures, short sales, probate sales, etc.. If you want …

D.R. Horton Inc., the second-largest U.S. homebuilder, said orders in the fiscal fourth quarter plunged to the lowest in almost six years as customers backed out of purchases and banks restricted lending.
The number of homes sold is down 39 percent than a year earlier. Customers canceled 48 percent of homes they reserved, up from 38 percent in the previous quarter.
Chairman Donald Horton said in a statement that prospective buyers had more difficulty obtaining mortgages, hurting demand. Total mortgage originations fell 8.8 percent in the second quarter to $730 billion from …