Mortgage crisis still in future

Sunday, November 25, 2007 3:34 AM

By Joe Bel Bruno
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK -- When Domenico Colombo saw that his monthly mortgage payment was about to balloon by 30 percent, he had a clear picture of how bad it could get.
His payment was scheduled to surge by an extra $1,500 in December. With his daughter headed to college next fall and tuition to be paid, he feared ending up like so many neighbors in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who defaulted on their mortgages and whose homes are now in foreclosure and sporting "For Sale" signs.
Colombo did manage to negotiate a new fixed-interest-rate loan with his bank, and now he believes he'll be OK -- but the future is less certain for numerous others....
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U.S. home prices plummet

By J.W. Elphinstone
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK -- U.S. home prices fell 4.5 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the sharpest drop since Standard & Poor's began its nationwide housing index in 1987 and another sign that the housing slump is far from over, the research group said yesterday.
One of the index's creators also predicted a significant chance of a recession as the economy contends with falling housing prices, spiking foreclosures and turmoil in the financial markets.
The odds for a recession are "over 50 percent," said Robert Shiller, chief economist for MacroMarkets LLC. Other economists have put the chance of recession at one in three.....