With all the news of still-declining home prices, most buyers are keeping their feet firmly planted on the sidelines unless they're sure they're getting a bargain. At the same time agents and banks are battling (mis)perceptions in their local markets, where property values may not be on such a slippery slope. Add to the equation a distressed property, and finding an agreeable short sale price while still covering enough of the mortgage debt to win over the lender can be a challenge. It's a nasty tug-of-war, with neither buyers or sellers feeling like they're gaining any ground.

The nation's ongoing foreclosure crisis has ushered in a new era of lending, volumes of new regulations, even a new federal agency...and now, a new way of looking at architecture and the suburban culture. New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has announced the launch of a 14-month initiative to examine new architectural possibilities for American cities and suburbs in the context of the foreclosure crisis in the United States.

The percentage of home loans going unpaid is steadily declining for the nation's second largest mortgage company. Freddie Mac reported Tuesday that its single-family seriously delinquent rate decreased to 3.63 percent in March. That's down 15 basis points from 3.78 percent in February, and the fourth consecutive month that the rate has headed south. With only a few intermittent blips upward over the last year, Freddie has recorded a drop in its seriously delinquent rate in nine of the past 12 months.

Homeowners who participate in default counseling are more likely to have their loans modified, according to a study from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Policymakers have increasingly turned to education and counseling to remedy problems that impede borrowers' ability to make their mortgage payments, but the trade group's report comes on the heels of federal budget cuts that have eliminated $88 million to fund HUD's counseling program.

Data released by Standard & Poor's Tuesday show that home prices are continuing to slip across the country, with residential property values just slightly above their April 2009 bottom. The 20-city composite reading of the latest S&P/Case-Shiller home price index fell another 1.1 percent in February 2011 when compared to the previous month. It's down 3.3 percent from the February 2010 level. Washington D.C. was the only market to post a year-over-year gain with an annual growth rate of 2.7 percent.

NeighborWorks America has received a $2 million grant from Bank of America to support the organization's foreclosure counseling efforts and fund training for local nonprofit professionals. NeighborWorks says the funding will help its network of community-based counselors create and preserve homeownership assets for 250,000 families.

The program launched by Treasury in March 2009 to take toxic mortgage assets off banks' books has earned $1.7 billion for taxpayers -- $500 million in dividends on the investments made and $1.2 billion in ""unrealized gains"" as the value of securities purchased under the program has increased. The private investment firms participating in the program - including the likes of AllianceBernstein, BlackRock, and Invesco - are seeing returns ranging from 27 to 75 percent.

A federal judge in California has dismissed all claims brought against Bank of America by investors who bought mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from Countrywide before BofA purchased the subprime lender in 2008. Even after the investors narrowed the scope of their case, the judge granted Bank of America's motion to dismiss on the grounds that the plaintiffs failed to show that two separate transactions between the bank and Countrywide involving the transfer of assets constituted a de facto merger.

An industry study released Monday shows that nearly half of home sales activity last month involved distressed properties, a trend that is likely to continue as the backlog of foreclosures and mortgage defaults make their way through the pipeline. Within this distressed property segment, the market analysis shows a boom in short sales during the month of March to a record-high 19.6 percent, and a drop in the proportion of damaged REO, which the report says should be a positive for home values in future months.

With no lender closings this weekend, the 2011 failed-bank tally holds at 34. By comparison, at this time in 2010, the year's failures stood at 57. Earlier this month, the FDIC updated its loss projections. The cost of FDIC-insured institution failures for the five-year period from 2011 through 2015 is expected to be $21 billion, compared to losses of $24 billion for banks that failed in 2010 alone. Market analysis conducted by Trepp LLC indicates that lenders are now taking the biggest hit from souring commercial real estate loans.