The Build America Bond program would be extended for two years under a bill introduced in the House of Representatives after previous efforts to extend the subsidized municipal-debt offerings stalled in the Senate.

WASHINGTON -Elderly Americans in Arizona, Maryland, New York and Ohio will soon find themselves living in upgraded apartments equipped to meet their physical needs because of $19.5 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD today announced the grants to help convert existing multifamily projects into assisted living facility for the elderly. A detailed summary of each grant is attached to this release.

Several analysts noted the reported re-default rate appeared too low ... it was. Shahien Nasiripour at the HuffPo has the story: The Obama administration has revised its latest monthly report on its signature foreclosure-prevention plan, deleting a heavily-criticized performance metric used to measure whether assisted homeowners are re-defaulting on their taxpayer-financed mortgages. ... "Subsequent to releasing the report, Treasury received inquiries regarding the calculation methodology used in this table," spokesman Mark Paustenbach said Tuesday. "These inquiries were related to the treatment of modifications that are cancelled from HAMP and ultimately become ineligible for TARP incentives after 90 days delinquency. "In an effort to review and better explain the methodology, we learned from our program administrator, Fannie Mae, that not all cancelled loans were included in the underlying information provided to Treasury," Paustenbach continued. "The error caused inconsistent reporting of permanent modifications during the snapshots reported. These omissions have impacted our previous analysis... with respect to the performance of HAMP permanent modifications." ... In place of the now-deleted table, in a revised report posted Monday to their FinancialStability.gov Web site, Treasury said: "Since the Making Home Affordable report was posted on July 20th, Fannie Mae, which administers the program, has reported to Treasury an issue in its implementation of the delinquency statistic methodology used to report performance of permanent modifications. Fannie Mae is now revising the data, and Treasury has retained a third-party consultant to provide additional review and validation. Upon completion of that independent review, a revised table will be provided.". As Nasiripour notes, most analysts think a majority of HAMP modifications will eventually re-default. Nasiripour mentions a Fitch analyst's forecast that 75 percent...

Back in 2008, I ran this of the Case Shiller Housing Price Index by BP reader Steve Barry. It was widely reproduced around the web. (Unfortunately, some unscrupulous folks striped Steve’s authorship off of it, and passed it off as their own). I asked Steve to update Shiller’s , now that much of the government intervention has run its course. There is still massive Federal Reserve subsidies in the form of record low rates. But the short term bounce caused by HAMP, Foreclosure abatements and first time home buyers tax credits are mostly over. Here is Steve’s chart: > click for ginormous graphic Chart courtesy of the , as modified by Steve Barry > Previously: (December 30th, 2008) (June 24th, 2010)

The tax credit for new home buyers that was instituted last year did little to bolster the housing market, an economist writes.

Credit cards do more than drain money from your wallet -- they may actually create an "implicit money transfer" from the poor to the rich, according to a new study from the Boston Federal Reserve. The study, titled , suggests that, as card use becomes more frequent, merchants have raised their prices to compensate for card-processing charges. (Hat tip to the ) As a result, the study suggests, the poor -- who usually lack access to reward-paying credit cards -- end up paying more for everyday goods. Over the last two decades, the paper notes, the percentage of households using credit cards has remained stable at around 75 percent. But total card-spending has jumped from nine percent to 15 percent. The increased use of cards drives up fees paid by merchants, who raise prices to cover the costs of the cards. As card-using households make more and more purchases with credit cards and jump to take advantage of card rewards programs, "cash-using" households bear the brunt of higher prices without any of the benefits of cards. Here's more from authors Scott Schuh, Oz Shy and Joana Stavins: On average, each cash-using household pays $151 to card-using households and each card-using household receives $1,482 from cash users every year. Because credit card spending and rewards are positively correlated with household income, the payment instrument transfer also induces a regressive transfer from low-income to high-income households in general. The authors suggest a few approaches policy makers could take to mitigate the damage caused by credit cards, including allowing merchants to adjust prices based on whether a purchase is made by cash or credit, a practice that is currently against the law. Read the study below: -

You know I am a sucker for these sorts of infographics: > Chart courtesy of > Source : ELISABETH BUMILLER NYT, July 24, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/weekinreview/25bumiller.html

The Case-Shiller Index printed this morning, so a bit of chart/table porn is in order. Below is a 20-in-1 look at the Composite 20 (both the chart and the table are NSA): 19 of the 20 metro areas showed sequential gains for the month, the only laggard being Las Vegas. Here’s a nostalgic city-by-city look back at the two year period that defined the peak of the bubble, and where we stand now. Interestingly, Boston was the first city to peak, in September 2005. Charlotte brought up the rear, peaking two years later in August 2007. (Please click through the image for clarity.)

Moody's Chief Economist Mark Zandi suggests limiting mortgage and property tax deductions to help pay down the national deficit.

Consumer Confidence Falls, Lowest Since February

Vacancy rates for both for-sale homes and rental units were flat in the second quarter from a year ago, according to the Census Bureau's residential vacancies report released today.

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

Merchant fees and reward programs offered by many credit-card issuers essentially take money from those who have the least and give it to those who have the most, a Boston Fed paper said. The imbalance may have to be remedied via government intervention, the authors argued.

Will a flood of home sellers topple the housing market's new-found stability?

Campbell Surveys put out a press release this morning: Home Prices Tumble in Most Categories During June (no link) A drop in homebuyer activity helped trigger a noticeable decline in home prices between May and June, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance Monthly Survey of Real Estate Market Conditions. ... Average prices tumbled by 6.8% for move-in ready foreclosed properties, 6.3% for short sales, and 4.6% for non-distressed properties. ... “Prices are dropping…same house that had 2 showings a day in April with hopes of a closing by June at $139,000 now gets a showing of just one a week if we are lucky and at $129,000,” reported a real estate agent responding to the survey and located in Florida. “Buyers just plan on deducting the $8,000 off what they are going to offer now. So, now prices are dropping to compensate for the credit not being available,” stated an agent located in Ohio. ... “Contracts signed in June will be closing in July and August,” explained [Thomas Popik, research director for Campbell Surveys]. “That’s why we know prices for closed transactions will continue their decline. But this won’t be reflected in the publicly-released price indexes until October or November.” We already know existing home sales collapsed in July, however, as Popik notes, it will take some time for the impact on house prices to show up in the house price indexes. The Case-Shiller index is a three month average and is released with a two month lag. The Case-Shiller house price index to be released tomorrow will be for a three month average ending in May. The first Case-Shiller release with July prices will be released at the end of September - and that will include the months of May, June and July! And prices were probably up in May and June. And prices don't fall overnight. Based on the timing of the above survey, prices fell from May to June - and those transactions will probably mostly closed in August. That is why Popik is saying the price declines...

Last month, when new home sales , I warned investors that “This data series is , and you are must better off using a 3 month moving average than reading too much into any single month.” This month, we see that New Home sales jumped 24%. The same caveat applies: Ignore the swings, look at the moving average to smooth out the volatility. In fact, the series is so noisy that way back in 2005, we had to to a study to figure out what to make of it. Our conclusion? “Looking back over the past 15 years of data, we see that a mean regression has followed nearly all double digit monthly gains. The subsequent month’s data was significantly lowered — flat to negative in nearly every case.” I have yet to do study on the negative double digit months, but I have a suspicion it would be the same. Bottom line: Anytime you see a big gain or drop in this data series, you should expect a reversal the following month. > click for larger chart Courtesy of > Previously : (November 30th, 2005) (June 23rd, 2010) Source : U.S. Department of Commerce, Manufacturing and Construction Division APRIL 23, 2010 AT 10:00 A.M. EDT Erica Filipek or Stephen Cooper http://www.census.gov/const/newressales.pdf

Sales of new homes are near 47-year lows, yet the supply of new and existing homes is expected to grow in the months ahead as construction ramps up and a wave of foreclosed homes hits the market.

On average, foreclosures reduce the value of a house by 27%, says a new paper from an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and researchers at Harvard University.

As a homeowner, and a prospective seller, you may be wondering if now is a good time to put your home on the market. But how can you tell if the market is in your favor at this time? Will you lose money or make money? Is it a "sellers market"?

Bruce Marks, who presides over these events claims they will see 60,000 borrowers over the next 8 days, and he also claims 80 percent of those borrowers will get modifications. Roughly 10 percent will get principal reductions, while most will get new interest rates as low as 2 and 3 percent fixed for the life of the loan.