There's a lot of news out there these days - the tide is rising on short sales and foreclosures - the sub-prime loan market is imploding or in meltdown. If this is affecting you or you think  it might then you might want to head over to CNN Money and read:

Your Home: 5 tips if you're in too deep - Feeling stretched by housing costs? Then it's time to give yourself a helping hand.

Today seems to be a great day for consumer advice.

Our first post today contained excellent advice for first-time buyers. Here is an excellent resource from Bankrate.com covering some of the same questions, but from a different perspective.: Understanding mortgages - Finding a home to buy is fun. Landing a mortgage to fit your lifestyle is more complicated. Here's some help

If you’re thinking of buying a home in Danville, San Ramon, Dublin or Pleasanton, CA, we’d love the opportunity to apply for assisting you with the process. We know the communities, the schools and the business.

Thinking of buying your first home in the San Ramon Valley area?

Do you have your sites set on Danville or San Ramon, CA? Maybe you’re thinking of Dublin or Pleasanton. Are you thinking single family home or condo?

Are you considering a zero down purchase or do you have a down payment? Is the market right for you to buy or should you wait?

We follow the local markets closely. You can find local MLS trends here, market details here, and real estate industry news here.

Elizabeth Weintraub over at About.com has an article with a list of links for those thinking of buying their first house. Be prepared to spend some time following links as she does a great job of covering all of the bases:

Guide to Home Buying Step-by-Step - Let's say one morning you wake up and realize that, yes, you should buy a home. You're tired of throwing away money on rent and figure that it's time to get into a home of your own. But you have reservations. Home Buying Guide to Getting Started

I was going to write this post on Friday, but the week got away from me. Having been through a short-sale of my own in 1979, I can appreciate the situation many people are finding themselves in with the implosion of the sub-prime lending market.

This was an interesting piece from Business Week - Mortgage Bankers' Economist: 'The Market Is Working Peter Coy makes some good points about the difference in perception if you switch from watching the market to watching the affect on people of the sub-prime meltdown.

Erik Hare relates in his weekend post - But none of this will stop the turmoil. As veteran investment advisor John Mauldin tells us: If you put just 4% (and it could be more!) of the homes sold in the last two years back on the market within the next six months, it is going to have a serious effect on housing valuations. While anecdotal evidence suggests home prices in many areas are starting to fall, lenders have not yet capitulated. In one county in California last week, 179 homes were put up for auction at the courthouse, with a reserve price of the mortgage value set by the lender. … The lenders did not sell one home.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but I am at risk of reverting back to my cynical worldview. After Enron, WorldCom, the major accounting firms, HP and all of the rest of the mess involving flim-flam CEO's and shyster business tactics - I'm about ready to turn the whole bada-bing over to Tony Soprano.

I'm not sure things would get better or worse, but every now and then Tony Soprano would give me the satisfaction of knowing that someone who built their wealth off of the suffering of others was sleeping with the fishes instead of plea bargaining their way to three squares a day with TV. 

As an aside, I found this interesting:

With all of the press about how bad the market is in Saramento, I was intrigued to see it listed in the number 5 spot of U-Haul’s Top 10 destinations in 2006. I guess all the inbound traffic was in the first half of the year as the only news I've heard in the last six months is how bad the Sacramento market is.

Teresa Boardman over at St. Paul Real Estate is having an early summer weenie roast. It seems like some of the 8 zillion blogs out there are missing a healthy dose of relish. Teresa is breaking out all of the condiments and firing up the grill to address the situation.

Here are some of the blogdogs we expect to see getting roasted.

• The onion-dog - the anemic writing and ego-centric nature of the posts on some blogs just bring out the tears in me.
• The ketchup-dog - these blogs assault your senses of integrity, fair play and harmony it’s a real bloodletting at these crime scenes.
• The bland-dog -  Breakout the stone-ground mustard for these downers of the blogosphere!
• The sauerkraut-dog - where would we be without those more interested in attacking than engaging?
• The gut-bomb-dog – these babies are loaded with every condiment and additive you can imagine – they can actually alter DNA - they give me gas.

Mother Teresa is a kind-hearted soul. If you read her regularly, you know she is a dedicated professional and avid (not rabid) blogger. She is not only interested in raising the bar in the real estate industry, but also in blogging. While others limbo in life, Teresa high jumps.

If she had a decade or so she could probably heal the pathetic, the lazy and the self-engorged. The sweet thing is that she is just out there doing her thing and enjoying almost every second of it.

So, grab your weenies and get over to the party.