Friday's weak jobs report is more bad news for the housing market, which has been in a funk following the expiration of the federal tax credits for home buyers at the end of April.

Regular readers have probably noticed our focus on , transit, , and recently. NHC and the Center are working to get local, state and national lawmakers ahead of the curve on what appears to be an emerging shift in housing demand, where more and more folks are moving back into the dense, inner-areas in America’s metro regions, and away from the sprawling suburbs. Today, we are officially launching an extended, Open House discussion of “Livability” to look at the topic and its many angles. Coming on the heels of the innovative, landmark livability legislation that’s , we’ll be discussing ways to make communities more affordable, greener, more walkable, and overall, better-suited to meet the needs of their residents in a sustainable way. There will be guest posts from experts in sustainability, regular input from the research team at the Center for Housing Policy, and in depth discussions of specific, timely issues in the world of livability. We’ll also be making an effort to feature comments and thoughts from readers. So to kick things off, why don’t use the comments section below to let us know what you livability means to you ? Is it more metro stations? Affordable housing? Clean water? Better schools? Play space for the kids? A Chipotle on every corner? We're dying to hear.

Here's a look at real-estate news in today's WSJ:

A Fannie Mae consultant said in a lawsuit that the U.S. --

August 5, 2010: FHFA Proposes Rule Establishing Office of Ombudsman

Obama administration officials knocked down rumors on Thursday about any plan for new programs--dubbed an "August Surprise" --to streamline refinancing or cut mortgage balances for homeowners in a bid to stimulate the economy without asking Congress for money ahead of the midterm elections.

The U.S. jobs report may hold the key to whether the Federal Reserve decides to take new steps to support the economy.

Two have outline the language of the Housing & Economic Recovery Act 2008 and the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act 2009. They are so you can quickly compare the relevant statutory language. It is important to keep in mind that the use of words is the key to establishing meaning to any law, regulation or policy. If certain action is specifically required/permitted under prior law, the most efficient way to eliminate that activity under subsequent law, is to refer to the subject activity (under the prior law) that is now being repealed. This is neat, clean and efficient. When this is not done, any interpretation of a repeal is arguably full of doubt. And so it seems to me that HUD's interpretation is full of doubt. I can strongly suggest that the language of HERA (HECM specific) and HFSH ( non HECM specific) are NOT reconcilable. The assumption has been made that Congress by the later legislation, intended to modify the relevant language in HERA. You can drive a Mack truck through the exception HUD claims HFSH made to HERA. A mere 5 words - "EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BY THE SECRETARY" is relied upon by HUD as the key for changing the entire structure of the approval process. It seems to me that a more prudent approach, a more sensible approach, a more spot on approach, a more deterministic approach would have been for Congress to repeal "The Requirements On Mortgage Originators section ( (n) 2 section of HERA ). Congress did not do this. Had they taken this route, things would have been quite clear. There would be no second guesing. It seems to many in our indutry that HUD has merely bootstrapped the uncertain and rather amorphous "AS DETERMINED BY THE SECRETARY" to get to the result it wanted. If my memory serves me correctly, HUD wanted to put its "limited" resources elsewhere. Was not this the main factor for wanting out of "approving" all originators? HUD'a statutory interpretation effectively abrogates FHA approval...

Tax credits and other incentives stirred abnormal demand levels making business planning difficult for builders.

Employers might be paying more for compensation but employees aren’t taking home the extras, according to a new study.

Or, how much household debt is now sustainable in this post-crisis era?

Major investors have long said banks should be required to repurchase defaulted loans that they securitized, and the Federal --

The report is out. Let's take a look. Private sector employment increased by 42,000 from June to July on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report® released today. July’s rise in private employment was the sixth consecutive monthly gain. However, over those six months increases have averaged a modest 37,000, with no evidence of acceleration. click on chart for sharper image Large Businesses Added Zero Jobs The chart shows that small and medium businesses added jobs while large businesses added a grand total of zero. If small business hiring turns down, and I think it will, ADP is going to start reporting negative job growth. Small Business Sentiment The reason I expect a relapse in that small business jobs is small business sentiment is in the gutter as evidenced by recent Gallup Polls. If large businesses are not hiring and small businesses do not increase hiring (or worse yet stop hiring), it's quite hard to be optimistic about jobs. Hiring Not Improving One of the things in the ADP report that caught my eyes was this short paragraph: " July’s rise in private employment was the sixth consecutive monthly gain. However, over those six months increases have averaged a modest 37,000, with no evidence of acceleration. " The key words in that paragraph are "no evidence of acceleration". It is consistent with the small business surveys mentioned above. ADP vs. BLS Reports Inquiring minds may be interested in seeing a comparison between ADP and the BLS (government) reports. A direct number to number comparison using the standard BLS report is inaccurate because ADP reports private nonfarm jobs while the BLS reports all nonfarm jobs. The latter is tremendously skewed this year by census hiring and firing. It is also skewed by normal government hiring and firing. Fortunately, the BLS does provide the private numbers in Excel format, so with minimal work an accurate comparison is possible. Let's go...

Senator Chris Dodd’s Livable Communities Act passed out of committee yesterday, hopefully sending the bill to the Senate floor before Dodd retires at the end of the year. We’re getting our first glimpses of the bill's newest language, and its looking like it would be a significant success for NHC, our partners, and sustainable development advocates of all stripes. Generally, the bill would coordinate Federal strategy to help communities address transportation, affordable housing, land use, and economic development issues together – in other words, make neighborhoods more . One of NHC’s main concerns in our discussions with Congress has been keeping affordability a . A few key provisions to keep an eye on: Transit Oriented Development (TOD): The bill would create both competitive grants for planning and challenge grants for implementing investments in public transportation, affordable housing, TOD, and more. A Federal “Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities” would oversee these grants. Affordability: NHC is particularly excited about the committee including affordability in the bill. The reason why affordability is a must is simple: when cities start to build high quality, convenient transportation options, particularly in urban areas, it will increase housing prices to a level that could put working families in a bind. So any responsible “livability” agenda must include affordability strategies. In its current language, this bill encourages affordability throughout. Long Term Affordability: Quality transportation doesn’t just increase prices in the short term. Keep in mind, these subway stations, rails, etc, will be in place for a long time. So localities should build long term affordability into their planning. While the specific time frame isn’t defined in the bill, long term affordability is a consideration for receiving some of the assistance the legislation would provide. Regeneration Planning Grant: Would authorize a demonstration program to help support...

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York may require banks to buy back faulty mortgages and other assets acquired through the rescues of Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc., a spokesman said.

In a welcome but choppy and exceptionally slow start in terms of what needs to happen, some public unions are agreeing to pay cuts in order to save jobs. In other cases, cities are imposing their will with unions fighting every step of the way. Please consider the New York Times article The furloughs that popped up during the recession are being replaced by a highly unusual tactic: actual cuts in pay. Local and state governments, as well as some companies, are squeezing their employees to work the same amount for less money in cost-saving measures that are often described as a last-ditch effort to avoid layoffs. A new report on Tuesday showed a slight dip in overall wages and salaries in June, caused partly by employees working fewer hours. Though average hourly pay is still higher than when the recession began, the new wage rollbacks feed worries that the economy has weakened and could even be at risk of deflation. Pay cuts are appearing most frequently among state and local governments, which are under extraordinary budget pressures and have often already tried furloughs, i.e., docking pay in exchange for time off. Warning that they will have to lay off people otherwise, many governors and mayors are pressing public employee unions to accept a reduction in salary of a few percentage points, without getting days off in exchange. At the University of Hawaii, professors have accepted a 6.7 percent cut. Albuquerque has trimmed pay for its 6,000 employees by 1.8 percent on average, and New York’s governor, David A. Paterson, has sought a 4 percent wage rollback for most state employees. State troopers in Vermont agreed to a 3 percent cut. In California, teachers in the Capistrano and Pacheco school districts have accepted salary cuts. “We’ve seen pay freezes before in the public sector, but pay cuts are something very new to that sector,” said Gary N. Chaison, an industrial relations professor at Clark University. Outsize pension costs and balanced budget requirements are...

Any explanation of the Housing boom and bust should be able to explain why it was global in nature. Hence, our on issues such as interest rates, lending standards, securitization, scramble for yield, etc. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in the : “Once and for all, let us nail the lie that the global credit crisis was basically a US sub-prime property bubble that went wrong, and that Europe was merely an innocent bystander hit by shrapnel. This is the property bubble chart on Page 12 of the IMF’s latest report (Article IV) on France. If you read the whole report – (click “Staff Report” here) – note the horrendous decline in French export share. But that is another story. As you can see, France had the most extreme price rises from 1997 to 2009, followed by Spain and Italy some way below. The Anglo-Saxons were more moderate. The US bubble was tame by comparison (measured by price: inventory overhang is another matter) and has largely corrected. This the American way, a short sharp purge. The Club Med bubbles have not corrected, by a long shot.” > House Prices Declining from Peaks Around the World chart courtesy of > Sources : IMF Executive Board Concludes 2010 Article IV Consultation with France International Monetary Fund, July 30, 2010 http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2010/pn10103.htm Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph, August 3rd, 2010 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100007092/reckless-europe-beats-reckless-america-at-property-bubbles/

China's emergence as the top consumer of energy, overtaking the U.S., is a major turning point for the world, according to Th --

Over at , Harvard economics professor Ed Glaeser looks at the ultra-low interest rates of the aughts, and does not find them to be much to blame for the US Housing boom and bust. Professor Glaeser unfortunately overlooks many of the causal and exacerbating factors of the housing boom and bust. Let us go over some of these factors for the benefit of those who may somehow have missed them. I have in the past, but given the prof’s 30 year chart, why don’t we walk him through the entire context of what took place historically. (Note: this is exhaustively detailed in ) 1. A medium Housing boom and bust began in 1989, following the Fed’s rate reaction to the ‘87 crash. Nationally, residential RE did not get back to break even until about 1996-97 (it varied by region). 2. The mid-1990s also saw the build out of numerous industries: Mobile, Software, Semi-Conductors, Internet, Storage, Telecom, Networks, etc. Huge amounts of wealth was created: Employment was running near capacity, wage gains were substantial, and employee stock options did extremely well. 3. Stock markets had been making enormous gains. As someone who worked on Wall Street then, I witnessed first hand investors taking partial cash outs of huge equity gains and rotating them into Real Estate. This included major upgrades to primary residences, and purchases of vacation/investment properties. 4. Then came Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, the dot com crash, analyst banking scandal, etc. The Equity party appeared to be over. 5. Starting in January 2001, the FOMC began lowering rates, eventually to 1%. Rates were below 2% for 36 months, and at 1% for over a year. This was unprecedented . 6. Homes are a leveraged credit purchase , and lowering the cost of that credit has an inverse effect on prices — i.e., cheaper mortgages = more expensive houses . People budget monthly, and those carrying costs are more important than actual purchase prices. An outsized drop in interest rates can cause a spike in home prices, with monthly...

On July 30, the House adjourned for August recess for six weeks. The House will again be in session on Tuesday, September 14.