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 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.

I’ve always wondered if agents consider the shows allies — educating potential buyers and sellers about the housing market — or enemies, filling the heads of buyers and sellers with housing myths.

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.

California’s state legislature is on the verge of passing the country’s first law that targets housing sprawl in an effort to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

From early on in this presidential campaign, I’ve been hoping for some substantive debate on the problems of the housing industry. What plans do Barack Obama and John McCain have to make sure that our country doesn’t suffer another mortgage and foreclosure crisis like the one it’s suffering through now? Unfortunately, the recent housing debate between the two candidates has been far from enlightening.

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.

Ever since Congress finally moved to provide financial assistance to homeowners struggling to pay their monthly mortgages, I’ve heard nothing but whining, mostly from folks who aren’t having any troubles making their own housing payments.