"Thousands of vacant homes across South Florida have deteriorated into eyesores that violate local health and safety laws, depress property values and spread blight. The owners of these homes: some of the world's biggest banks."

"In an extensive investigation of foreclosed homes plaguing neighborhoods, the Sun Sentinel found more than 10,300 property code violations lodged against banks in 10 South Florida cities since 2007."

"Tucson's housing market has fallen so hard so fast that more than one in three homes sold last year went for less than $100,000.

Nearly 6,400 homes in Pima County, Arizona were sold for five figures in 2011 - that's more than 35 percent of the 18,000 homes sold last year, an Arizona Daily Star analysis shows."

Included in the report is an interactive map showing the areas of town with the most sales under $100,000 and under $25,000.

"Housing experts now estimate more than 100,000 homes in the Las Vegas valley have been foreclosed since 2007. Bad enough, but they also predict another 100,000 could face foreclosure before the housing crisis ends."

KLAS, in Las Vegas, has been reporting on the mortgage crisis since 2007, but their latest series of investigations may be the hardest hitting. Lawmakers are now working with homeowners and have created the Nevada Foreclosure Mediation Program.

"The number of vacant homes and rentals has exploded 52 percent in Pima County in the past 10 years, thwarting a housing market recovery and driving even some middle- and upper-income neighborhoods into decline.

An Arizona Daily Star analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows the spike in unoccupied homes and apartments has pushed Pima County's vacancy rate from 9.4 percent of housing units in 2000 to almost 12 percent in 2010. That means about one in eight homes or apartments in Tucson is vacant."

Exposure to lead – even a little – in tap water can cause serious health problems in both children and adults. In this report by Ellen Gabler of the Chicago Tribune, she reveals that a recent federal testing of Chicago’s tap water showed that “nearly 45 percent” of homes “had lead levels spike when more water samples were taken directly” after the initial testing that is done. All homes passed that first test. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials conducted another small study of Chicago tap water earlier this year, which also revealed high levels of lead.

Gabler writes, “Those results ...

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As the real estate market began to crumble around 2007, the Florida housing market took a big hit. In 2009, nearly 6 percent of the state’s “entire housing stock” was in foreclosure. While the market has improved slightly in the past two years, there are still “almost 40,000 properties in foreclosure. “Almost 30,000 more are in the short sale process … and “another 56,000 are in preforeclosures.”

Ralph De La Cruz of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that because of the giant number of foreclosure cases, the state hired former judges and used “expedited procedures ...

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Rob O’Dell, of  the Arizona Daily Star, reports on the shameful acts of three of the largest banks in Arizona.

“Banks that took bailout money were supposed to use part of the taxpayer-provided cash infusion to help customers avoid foreclosure, but instead, many of them are buying up struggling homeowners’ tax debt.

The tax liens earn banks up to 16 percent interest, and if homeowners don’t repay their debt within three years the banks can foreclose on their homes. Since the bailout in 2008, major banks have bought nearly 6,000 tax liens in Pima County that total ...

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“Detroit Free Press investigative reporter Jennifer Dixon reports Sunday that Fannie Mae is privately telling banks to foreclose on homeowners who are more than a year deliquent even if the borrowers are seeking a federal loan modification. The policy, uncovered in confidential Fannie Mae records, is contrary to Fannie Mae’s public assurances that homeowners will be protected from foreclosure while applying for a federal HAMP loan.

A report Monday reveals how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are selling foreclosed homes way below market value, lowering property value throughout metro Detroit.”

In this report, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reveals that Burmese refugees who have fled their home to avoid persecution, have found themselves placed in terrible living conditions. The Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan placed the refugees in "cockroach-infested Milwaukee apartments." Most of the rooms did not have fire or carbon monoxide detectors and some were contaminated with noxious fumes from leaking sewage. The company admits that it did not do a background check on the apartment building's owner. Further investigation shows that the owner, Daniel Bruckner, had a laundry list of legal troubles, including hundreds of ... Read more ...

In "Million-Dollar Wasteland," The Washington Post's Debbie Cenziper reports that the federal government's largest housing construction program for the poor has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on stalled or abandoned  projects and routinely failed to crack down on derelict developers or the local housing agencies that funded them. Nationwide, nearly 700 projects awarded $400 million have been idling for years -- some for a decade or longer. One delayed project involved three real-estate speculators, once convicted in the largest HUD scandal in D.C. history, who sold rotting apartment complexes to a HUD-funded nonprofit using an inflated appraisal ... Read more ...