I have writer’s block. The deadline for my column in VAR’s Commonwealth Magazine passed earlier this week, and I’ve yet to type a word of anything coherent (no wry comments, please).

So here’s the deal: YOU can help me write the column. Don’t worry, it’s not difficult. All it requires is a sense of humor and the recollection of a song or two.

ANNOUNCING: Scott’s “Songs for an Economic Slump” Contest….

Here’s the premise: In the great soundtrack of life, even an economic slump needs its own theme song.

Below are several categories. Your job is to suggest a song title or snippet of lyrics – from actual, reasonably mainstream music – that in your opinion summarizes the particular category. Just leave your suggestion in the comments on this post. I’ll take the best suggestions…determined solely by me and my own subjective and somewhat warped sense of humor…and publish them in my June Commonwealth column. (And no, this contest is NOT just limited to Virginia REALTORS®.)

So be creative. Be clever. Just be helpful. I really do need to finish this @#!% column. Deadline for submissions is Monday at 5 p.m. EDT, and you can make recommendations in any or all categories.

1. SONGS YEARNING FOR THE HOUSING MARKETS OF 2004-2006

2. SONGS FOR SUBPRIME LENDERS

3. SONGS FOR ECONOMISTS WHO DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING

4. SAD SONGS FOR SHORT-SELLERS WHO THOUGHT THEIR NO-MONEY-DOWN A.R.M. WAS A SWEET DEAL

5. SONGS FOR UNREALISTIC SELLERS AND THE REALTORS® WHO OVERPRICE THEM

6. SONGS OF THOSE ADVOCATING A FEDERAL BAILOUT

7. SONGS DESCRIBING THE WHOLE, CURSED ECONOMIC MESS

Now go to it. I look forward to hearing your entries!

Ken Harney in today’s Washington Post:

Could designations of Zip codes, metropolitan areas and entire states as “declining markets” hinder a real estate recovery and hurt minority groups and moderate-income buyers disproportionately? Growing ranks of critics say yes.

Since late 2007, most lenders, insurers and mortgage investment firms have compiled lists of markets that they regard as higher risks because housing values are dropping. In those areas, borrowers are charged higher rates and loan fees and are required to make bigger down payments — costs that can rise significantly when applicants have credit scores below designated minimum levels.

In some cases, the extra fees can add more than two percentage points to the interest rate and require much more cash up front. At their extreme, declining-market designations remove entire categories of real estate from financing eligibility. Some private mortgage insurers, for instance, won’t touch second homes or rental-home investments anywhere in large swaths of Florida and California.

Industry estimates on affected Zip codes range from 8,000 to more than 12,000 across the country. Many parts of the Washington area are included.

Full story here.

Today’s (March 19) New York Times features a credit-crisis-for-dummies story that, for simple-minded folks like me, is a must-read. Turns out, even the smart Wall Street types don’t completely understand what’s going on. (Whew! That makes me feel so much better. I may be ignorant, but I’m in good company?!)

I know it may not be PC (in most REALTOR® circles, at least), but this editorial from today’s (March 12) Wall Street Journal makes good sense to me. The gist of it is that helping homebuyers stave off foreclosure (for an additional month or so…) and programs that attempt to keep marginal borrowers in their homes at any cost is actually prolonging the agony. The author argues that the market won’t reach bottom and start back up until the bad credit risks (or at least the worst of them) are out of the homes and bad loans. In particular, he writes:

….Government policy is working against itself. The Fed is pushing on a string — it can’t bring back confidence in specific assets by flooding the market with generalized liquidity, though it can certainly undermine confidence in the dollar and its own anti-inflation credibility. On all sides, meanwhile, the call for a housing bailout is becoming deafening, nigh irresistible. But the seized-up credit markets won’t be unseized by trying to induce debtors to cling to houses they now see as throwing good money after bad.

By definition, the only haircut lenders rationally want to take is the minimum required to keep owners on the fence about walking away. Not much better are bailout plans that try to keep borrowers in their homes by shifting some of their equity losses to the taxpayer. The market has utterly changed from the market in which these recent purchasers made their purchase decisions. They’ve been renting their homes and don’t really lose much through foreclosure. Let them go.

What do you think?

A story in today’s New York Times reports that bankruptcies were up 18 percent in February. Of particular note:

Americans filed for bankruptcy in growing numbers in February, buckling under the combined weight of rising energy prices, a weakening housing market and sky-high personal debts.

An average of 3,960 bankruptcy petitions were filed per day nationwide last month, up 18 percent from January and up 28 percent from a year earlier, according to Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, a bankruptcy data and management company.

 February was the busiest month for filings since Congress overhauled the bankruptcy law in 2005. Bankruptcy experts said the rise was particularly worrisome because those changes made filing for bankruptcy more complicated and expensive.

 “This number of bankruptcies may be under-representative of the true financial distress consumers are feeling because of the steps Congress has taken,” said Jack Williams, a scholar in residence at the American Bankruptcy Institute and a professor at Georgia State University.

The latest figures show the financial pain is spreading from states like California and Florida, which exemplified the housing boom and subsequent bust, to those along the Eastern Seaboard like Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, which were among the 10 states with the largest percentage increase in filings in January and February. “You are seeing a good-size uptick everywhere,” said Mike Bickford, president of Automated Access.

> This from the Chicago Trib: Should you buy or should you hold off?

> This from Inman: Realtors question Web site name restrictions, about concerns some are raising about a new Code of Ethics standard of practice that says REALTORS shall not “use URLs or domain names that present less than a true picture.” The new SOP, approved last November, is the result of the use, by some members, of domain names that suggest that the REALTOR is actually the MLS (for instance, a broker whose website is “VirginiaMLS.com”). Seems to me such usages are misleading at best…and therefore the new NAR SOP is appropriate. Or in other words, just because it’s legal and you own it doesn’t mean it’s ethical. What do you think?

In our ongoing effort (okay, MY ongoing effort) to keep you well-read on what’s being written out there about the housing economy and your profession, here are a few must-reads:

> Incredible, but true: Daniel Kadlec actually writes something positive about the current housing market in last week’s issue of TIME . Any article about the current situation that’s entitled Ignore the headlines (as this one is) has got to be provocative, right?

> This, from the February 22 New York Times about some new proposals Congress is considering for “rescuing” homeowners who are upside down on their mortgages. What’s your take on this idea of a bailout (for lack of a better term)?

> Interesting piece here (from seekingalpha.com) that takes a contrarian view of what’s happening (and is ahead) in the mortgage markets. Be sure and read the comments, too, many of which take a contrarian view of the author’s contrarian view.

> Speaks for itself: Top 5 Things I Love About The Current Real Estate Market

> The Next Slum? In this month’s Atlantic Monthly, Christopher B. Leinberger says the subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.

> How to find your lost iPhone. I read about this at sellsiusrealestateblog. If you lose your iPhone, this service will locate it for you on a Google map. Not that I can imagine anyone so careless as to misplace anything as lovely as an iPhone….

> From today’s NYT (Feb 23): A ‘Moral Hazard’ for a Housing Bailout: Sorting the Victims From Those Who Volunteered

Lastly, if you have a life outside work, pick up a copy of THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy. Has not a thing to do with real estate, but I just finished it, and it’s the best thing I’ve read in a long time. And don’t be dissuaded by the fact that it’s an Oprah Book Club pick; it won last year’s Pulitzer Prize.

– Scott Brunner, CAE