The Boston Globe Says the Foreclosure Crisis is Over

First thing I noticed, page one:

"Amid housing slump, first-time buyers are priced into the market"

"When Kelly and Justin Crosby first started looking at homes in Boston's western suburbs last year, they quickly eliminated Southborough from their list - they liked the large lots but prices were out of their reach.

What a difference a year made. With home prices falling, the couple broadened their search and are now about to close on a split-level home on 1.7 wooded acres in Southborough for $84,000 less than its original list price.

"We waited and made the smart decision," Kelly Crosby said. "The neighborhood just makes us feel really good," she said.

Families buying their first home, like the Crosbys, are among the few, happy beneficiaries of a housing slump that has sliced 11 percent off the median price of single-family homes in the Boston area since September 2005. Others finding a silver lining in the gloom are those for whom a house had seemed simply out of reach - often single mothers living off one paycheck - and those once limited to condominiums who now find that houses have dropped back into their price range....

Yeah, hey everything is great.... until you turn-in and buried in the middle of this piece, surrounded by shit, is this:

But the window of opportunity may be brief. Gus Faucher, an economist for Economy.com, said fewer people will be able to afford housing if a recession causes people to lose their jobs - and with those jobs any hope of buying a home. The first half of 2008, he said, "is going to be right about the peak time for affordability." The surge of first-time home buyers will not be enough to reverse the current market decline, real estate agents and economists said. Tightened lending standards will continue to limit the number of buyers. And while overall mortgage rates have drifted down over the past year, loans are more difficult - and sometimes impossible - to obtain, even for those with good credit. Lenders often require larger down payments or a higher credit rating to qualify for the lowest rates...."

So where did the $200 BILLION go that was supposed to be out there to loan?

Banks gobbled it all up, huh?

Just like a candy-covered shit ball, huh?