Good explanation of housing slump triggering recession fears from Bloomberg.

The sharpest slowdown in U.S. home-price growth in three decades is trapping owners with mortgages they can’t afford, pushing unsold homes to a record 4.42 million and gutting profits for builders such as Lennar Corp. and Toll Brothers Inc. The U.S. median home price next year may fall for the first time since the Great Depression

How the skyrocketing home prices goosed the economy… but no more.

Homeowners cashed out a record $243.9 billion of home equity with mortgage refinancing in 2005