How do we fix the housing problem? There will be no true recovery until the housing market stabilizes and begins to rebound.

With millions of homeowners “underwater” with their mortgages, they cannot refinance to the lower rates, cannot borrow for home improvements, and cannot sell to move and buy another home.

The large number of foreclosed properties depresses the market, and there continue to be more foreclosures every day.

Full story is available on fredericksburg.com

If it’s early February, Charlie Hamilton is giving Lubbock’s homebuilders and residential developers the lay of the land — literally and figuratively.

It’s about this time every year, Charlie cranks up his statistical wayback machine and walks the builders and developers through the year that was, and offers some thoughts on how the trends might break in the year that’s coming.

Full story is available on lubbockonline.com

Orange County housing hot spots are near the beach.

For the 22 business days ending Jan. 19 – freshest numbers from DataQuick — our region-by-region analysis of local real estate trends finds Orange County homebuying slicing up by geography this way …

Full story is available on OCRegister

No one at this year’s Urban Land Institute conference predicted when metro Phoenix’s housing market will rebound.

The annual Arizona conference, where real-estate industry leaders convene and predict the market’s movements, has been the most important summit on Valley real estate since the beginning of the housing boom nearly a decade ago. But this year, the conversations and atmosphere were different.

Full story is available on Tucson Citizen

Tino Martinez admits he helped approve billions of dollars in questionable home loans even when he thought they “would result in default and foreclosure.”

After Martinez was hired as his company’s top Midwest executive, its Chicago metro operation went from 6,000 loan applications in 2003 to more than 100,000 three years later. Another company’s Midwest operations he oversaw loaned $130 million a month to risky borrowers.

Full story is available on Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

President Obama pushed Saturday for mortgage reform — an issue central to his election-year focus on the middle class.

The President, utilizing the populist rhetoric that has become his trademark on the campaign trail, slammed lenders and banks who sold loans to families who couldn’t afford them.

Full story is available on NYDailyNews

The National Association of Realtors(R) commends President Obama for pledging to assist homeowners and the struggling housing market, because restoring the health of the housing market is critical for the nation’s economic recovery.

“As the nation’s leading advocate for homeownership and housing issues, NAR knows that stabilizing the housing market is key to the health of our economy and communities across the country,” said NAR President Moe Veissi, broker-owner of Veissi & Associates Inc., in Miami. “We are pleased that the President released a plan to help America’s struggling housing market and homeowners. Improving access to simple, low-cost refinancing and streamlining the process will help hardworking families who have stayed current on their mortgage payments and will go a long way to helping keep more families in their homes.”

Full story is available on MarketWatch

If a new home is in your sights, is now a good time to buy? Should you consider selling? Not clear on what to do in today’s housing market?

Three Intown professionals hope to set the record straight by schooling you on some of today’s myths regarding the current climate. They include Weslee Knapp, real estate consultant and managing broker, Keller Knapp Realty (kellerknapp.com); Dac Carver, vice president and managing broker, Beacham & Company (beacham.com); and Randal Lautzenheiser, managing broker, Atlanta Intown Real Estate Services (AtlantaIntown.com).

Full story is available on AtlanaInTownPaper

Not surprisingly, I’m going to have to agree with both Yale Economist Robert Shiller in this Business Insider interview and Barry Ritholtz at his Big Picture blog in arguing that a housing bottom – if it does indeed arrive in 2012 – will prove disappointing for those expecting gains on their real estate investment in 2013 or 2014.

As shown above using the mid-1990s Los Angeles housing market as an example of what might happen to national home prices in the years ahead, housing market bottoms are long drawn out affairs.

Full story is available on Seeking Alpha

President Obama lays out a new plan for tackling the housing crisis, but will it be more successful than prior efforts?

The president had only to cross the Potomac River to Falls Church, Va., to find plenty of foreclosures.

Full story is available on pbs.org