We knew the housing market news was grim when the National Assn. of Realtors released numbers last week showing that existing home sales dropped 27.2% from June to July, a 15-year low. We knew things were even grimmer when Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said recently that despite low interest rates and lower prices, the glut of foreclosed properties and difficulties getting mortgages were "likely to continue to weigh on the pace of residential investment for some time yet." Oh, and then there's the figure of "25% of mortgages are underwater" that's been floating around. As far as stats go, that's almost as scary as nearly 20% of Americans thinking the president is Muslim.

But my real scare happened a few weeks ago when, amid my daily surfing of Internet real estate sites, I happened upon a particularly gruesome scene. Included among the photographs for a listing of a four-bedroom, four-bath house in a relatively desirable area was a close-up of an open toilet choked with what appeared to be a tangle of dark hair. A large tangle. Imagine a trichotillomaniac Morticia Addams who won't flush....

"It's not hair," ...[the real estate agent] told me [when I reached her on the phone]. "It's tree roots."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Housing/Real Estate Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--

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