According to a Sept. 29 story by Bloomberg News, which you can read here, officials with the National Association of Home Builders are asking members of Congress to pass a $15,000 tax credit for all homebuyers. This, officials with the trade association hope, will entice consumers to purchase homes.

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.

It’s hard not to be negative when you’re writing about residential real estate. But yesterday I posted about an increase in the sales of existing homes. Today, I’m spreading a bit more sunshine: The sales of new homes increased in July, too.

I’ve criticized the major real estate associations in the past for spinning bad real estate news. The associations have blamed the media for making the housing crisis seem worse than it is. They’ve claimed that the current real estate slump is just a natural correction. And they’ve spent months predicting that we’ve finally reached the bottom of the market.

It’s not the best way to start off a new week, but here we go: The sales of newly built homes continued to drop last month.

In what should come as a surprise to no one, the sales of new homes dropped once again this May.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, home remodeling work remained steady in the first quarter of this year.

Take a look at this story in the Wall Street Journal’s online edition. Written by June Fletcher, it says that, according to economists gathered at the spring construction forecast held by the National Association of Home Builders, the housing market won’t show signs of improvement until early next spring, at the earliest.

Builders today have little confidence that the market for residential condominiums will improve any time soon.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, or maybe I expect too much out of green building, but to me, green doesn’t mean you can build the largest house possible as long as it has Energy Star-rated windows.