BusinessWeek Online – With the growing mortgage crisis threatening to send the economy into a tailspin, help is on the way. On Dec. 6, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced a much anticipated plan aimed at preventing a wave of foreclosures among homeowners facing sharply higher monthly payments on adjustable-rate mortgages that will soon reset.

BusinessWeek Online – A year ago the six-bedroom house where Scott and Dawn Norton raised 10 children in the shadow of a Utah mountain range would have been snatched up.

BusinessWeek Online – While consumers, politicians and pundits debated the Bush administration’s plan to help subprime borrowers that was unveiled on Dec. 6, investors piled into beaten-down homebuilder stocks. Shares of Toll Brothers , which reported fourth-quarter results before the market opened, jumped 13%, to $23.42, while Lennar rose 15%, to $18.73; KB Home surged 16%, to $24.25; and Centex moved up nearly 13%, to $25.18.

BusinessWeek Online – In the world of real estate, foreclosure has long been the ultimate sanction–a kind of capital punishment for the borrower gone bad. But some foreclosures are now facing legal challenges that threaten to delay or even derail the proceedings. That could spell more trouble for both lenders and investors in the giant market for mortgage-backed securities.

BusinessWeek Online – When it comes to U.S. consumers, it's important to remember that what they tell survey-takers, and what they actually do, are often two very different things. The Nov. 27 release of the Conference Board's closely watched consumer confidence survey posted an even bigger November drop than economists had expected, indicating rising gasoline prices, housing market woes, and credit-market worries may be taking their toll. And yet the report comes on the heels of data showing robust retail sales for the Black Friday holiday shopping weekend, and probably for the month as a whole.

BusinessWeek Online – In the housing market, the bad news just keeps coming. Nov. 27 gave us the latest release of one leading index which shows that home prices are falling at their steepest rate in 21 years. And there may be much worse ahead: Futures traders are betting that home prices will fall more than 20% in markets such as San Francisco and Miami over the next year.

BusinessWeek Online – When it comes to U.S. consumers, it’s important to remember that what they tell survey-takers, and what they actually do, are often two very different things. The Nov. 27 release of the Conference Board’s closely watched consumer confidence survey posted an even bigger November drop than economists had expected, indicating rising gasoline prices, housing market woes, and credit-market worries may be taking their toll. And yet the report comes on the heels of data showing robust retail sales for the Black Friday holiday shopping weekend, and probably for the month as a whole.

BusinessWeek Online – On Nov. 20, the residential real estate industry seemed to finally get an unexpected dose of much-needed good news. After four consecutive months of declines, the number of new homes being built crept up by a stronger-than-expected 3% in October, according to the Commerce Dept.

BusinessWeek Online – Like other companies involved in the mortgage business, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have seen their share prices suffer amid the subprime crisis. But that was nothing compared to what happened Nov. 20. Investors punished the shares of the home finance giants after Freddie posted a surprising — and disturbing — third-quarter loss of $2 billion and warned that it was having trouble meeting its regulatory capital requirements and may need to cut its dividend in half to raise capital reserves.

BusinessWeek Online – When Paris-based online mortgage broker Meilleurtaux launched in 1999, founder and chief executive Christophe Cremer had a hard time convincing banks to work with him. Though similar sites in the U.S. such as E-Loan (NasdaqGS:BPOP – News) had long enjoyed success, bankers across the Atlantic were skeptical Meilleurtaux (French for “best rate”) would take off. Cremer forged ahead anyway — and soon racked up the numbers to sway any disbeliever. “I showed them the site was getting over 40,000 applications a month and that it wouldn’t be profitable for them not to work with us,” he says.