Short sales and foreclosures affect homeowners differently depending on individual situations, but the experts generally agree that short sales are less damaging to one's credit.

Quoted: You have to keep in mind that credit scoring is accumulative, everything is factored to come up with those three scores that are suppose to reflect your current credit. The only real good news about credit scoring is that your scores are temporary–they are changing constantly. Pay down a credit card, establish good payment history on your installment loan and your scores will improve over time.

Quoted: A second piece of legislation, House Resolution 3854, passed the House of Representatives and was referred to the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship this week. It amends the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 that, among other things, would authorize the small business administration to originate loans to homeowners of properties built with Chinese drywall to pay for its repair or replacement.

Negative equity is increasing in American Households, which has and will continue to affect consumer spending. Another concern is a further increase in distressed properties that will lead to more declines in pricing.

Quoted: "First American CoreLogic, which estimates the numbers many media outlets use, has changed its methodology from the last survey. It now no longer assumes that home equity lines of credit have been completely drawn down (fair), and it credits payments that mortgagors have made to pay down their principal (duh). The net result is that the housing situation looks better than it did a few months ago. Still bad, but better."

The worry is that, just like the cash for clunkers program, we're attracting all first-time buyers to buy now to buoy the health of the market, but that will reduce the amount of first-time buyers down the road, which could again hurt the market.

Quoted: Thanks in part to an $8,000 tax credit, first-time buyers accounted for a record 47 percent of all home purchases this year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Quoted: The problems started after mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae decided to take steps earlier this year to limit exposure in what it viewed as a risky lending segment that’s been loaded with foreclosures, Sachenbacher says.
As a result, the two biggest insurers of mortgage loans now require 70% of a condo property’s units to be sold, up from 51% less than a year ago, before it will insure or buy the loan, thereby allowing it to be sold on the secondary market.

Quoted: Existing home sales were up 23.5 percent from a year earlier and sales activity was at the highest pace since February 2007, NAR says.

FHA funding for condos is changing big time - times will be tough for condo buildings in a price range that appeals to first-time buyers using FHA financing

Quoted: The spot approval process will be eliminated for all case numbers on or after Feb. 1, 2010 under the new guidelines. The FHA created the process, allowing consumers to purchase a unit in a non-approved condominium project that has limited FHA involvement.

Quoted: Sold on its square footage -- Quadrant advertisements run during the housing boom presented a family lost in its living room -- the house lacked a heater powerful enough to warm all that space, Sigafoos said. Sections of the home had been left without insulation by crews working for the Weyerhaeuser Co.-owned developer, he claimed, and wet materials used during the house's rushed construction provided a foothold for mold.

Quoted: According to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure database, 6,495 properties entered some stage of foreclosure in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue region in the third quarter of this year. That translates into a 38 percent increase from a year ago, putting the region 95th out of 203 metro areas that RealtyTrac gauges.