Trading of IndyMac has halted:

Surprisingly, this isn’t a big headline today, but certainly big news.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are seeing huge drops today: [Thanks John for catching this one!] NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Shares of mortgage financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both plunged Monday as fears deepened about the credit crisis and housing meltdown. In midday trading, shares of Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) were down 20% and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) shares were down more than 22%. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government sponsored enterprises that help the mortgage market function by purchasing pools of loans and…
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This story is a tough one for animal lovers: As the number of home foreclosures escalates, many distressed homeowners are left with one more difficult task – giving up their pets. People often find themselves in smaller rental homes or apartments after losing their home, and many of those rentals do not allow pets. Many owners take their animals to shelters, hoping their pets will find new homes. Others simply move without their pets, leaving them behind in the backyard or abandoning them on the side of the road. Before would-be renters take that "no pets permitted" sign too much…
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When the pundits were saying that there would be no "subprime contagion", Doomers were saying "This is only the beginning". Sadly, we were right- the bad news just keeps on coming.  Rising vacancy rates have expanded from residential real estate to retail: U.S. store closings and cutbacks turned the second quarter into the worst for strip mall owners in 30 years, as budget-conscious consumers flocked to low-cost warehouse-style grocery centers, according to a report by real estate research firm Reis. Strip malls, which are usually anchored by grocery or drug stores, saw average vacancies spike 0.5 percentage points to 8.2…
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It’s Monday, and in the interest of full disclosure, I thought I would mention that I purchased a custom built house for which I paid cash.  Here’s a photo:

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors (GLVAR0 has released their report for the month of June.  The median price has dropped from $305,000 in June 2007 to $225,000 in June 2008, for a drop of 26.2%- the largest YOY decline since the market started to decline: Lower prices however, have indeed brought more sellers back into the market.  2,226 single family homes sold in June, a 51% increase over last year:   A couple of things to note– Sales typically peak around June, so this may be the busiest month of the year- sales typically decline in the second…
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