Well, this just further proves that real estate is the meanest profession. Dean "Cookie Kwan" Isenberg was arrested a week ago and charged with "Home prices fell 6.7% in October, a record decline according to CNNMoney.
It was the largest drop in more than 16 years and marked the 10th consecutive month of price depreciation and 23 months of decelerating returns.

"No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim," said Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets, in a statement. The shocking, revelation that housing prices were being artificially inflated by speculators who are now now off speculating on something else is finally hitting people:
According to Schiff, one factor that will drive prices lower is a change in buyer psychology. "The prices that existed were completely artificial, a function of speculators who are no longer in the market," he said. "Some buyers thought they were going to get rich."

Today, however, that demand has all but disappeared. "More people want - or have - to sell," said Schiff, "because prices aren't going up, so buyers have to look at the actual cost of owning a home."What? Buying a home to actually live in? People do that? We're going to plug our ears and go watch Flip That House.

One of the dangers to watch out for when buying a home are the various kinds of fees that can crop up, and comparison shopping these fees is not always easy. Now there's a new site that gives you a reasonable baseline you can expect, specific to your area and property deal. Input your transaction, property and occupancy type, purchase price, and zipcode, and FeeDisclosure.com will tell what various fees you can expect in getting your mortgage. Much-needed transparency for a notoriously murky and shark-infested industry.

Foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac has announced November's foreclosure numbers and, while foreclosure activity is down 10% from last month's number, the news isn't happy. Foreclosures are up 68% from November 2006, with 201,950 foreclosure filings—up from 120,334 this time last year. Also worth mentioning, last year's numbers weren't exactly low—they were up 68% from 2005.

The foreclosure filing numbers include notices of default, pending lawsuits, auctions, and back repurchases or REOs. An increase in REOs is a troubling statistic because it means that banks are unable to sell properties at auction, and are being forced to keep them.

Here are some of the numbers for the month of November:

Notices of Default: 35,096
Auctions: 71,965
Bank Repurchases: 46,438

When comparing this year's numbers to 2006, one can see that the increase in foreclosure numbers comes mainly from auctions and repurchases. There were only 4,069 more notices of default served this November, but 81,616 more filings in all.

The Fed proposed new sub-prime lending rules designed to protect consumers from predatory lending practices, in the future. You know, because the most important thing is to prepare for the next sub-prime meltdown. Critics were quick to lambaste the plans:

The Fed has unanimously approved a new plan to tighten provisions designed to prevent predatory mortgage lending, as well as help to decrease the number of consumers who irresponsibly take on debt that they cannot afford to repay.

The proposed changes would (among other things) prohibit lenders from issuing loans without taking into consideration the borrower's ability to repay the debt from sources other than the home's value, severely limit prepayment penalties on loans that are subject to rate increases, prohibit creditors and