BusinessWeek recently ran an interesting story about homeowners who are paying a whopping 50 percent — or more — of their monthly incomes on mortgage and other housing payments. You can read the story here.

The National Association of Home Builders recently reported — citing statistics from the Commerce Department — that the sales of newly built single-family homes fell 11.5 percent in August.

The latest bit of creative genius that I’ve discovered comes by way of The New York Times, which details the story of a couple who, unable to sell a home that was nearing foreclosure, held a raffle to get the home off their hands. Yes, a raffle.

The big reason behind WaMu’s failure is no surprise: Its home-loan business sunk the bank. WaMu had way too much in mortgage-related losses.

Election officials and voting-rights groups are worried that many of the millions of U.S. homeowners who lost their residences to foreclosure will also lose their chance to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

RealtyTrac, an online provider of foreclosure information, reported that foreclosure activity rose once again in August. This time, activity rose by 12 percent.

Today, though, real estate pros aren’t as quick to boast about the impact the housing industry is having on the country’s finances. Maybe that’s because the residential real estate industry is now being blamed for everything from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch to the recent bailout of insurance giant AIG.

The Canadian dollar is strong and U.S. homes are cheaper than they’ve been in years. This combines to make U.S. housing a strong investment for Canadian buyers.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are a record number of homes sitting vacant. This is bad news for neighborhoods.

Here’s a shocking statistic: Nearly a quarter of U.S. homeowners with first mortgages also have home equity loans. At the same time, the value of outstanding home equity loans in this country has grown from $1 billion in the 1980s to more than $1 trillion now.