Nine months ago, the Obama administration offered banks $75 billion in taxpayer money to rework troubled mortgages.

The Federal Housing Administration is giving the condo market something it hasn't had for a while - a little breathing room.

The $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time home buyers is being extended, and the deal is being sweetened: Now existing homeowners can get $6,500 from the government if they buy another house. Congress approved the $10.8 billion tax break Thursday, and the president is expected to sign it into law today.

WASHINGTON — Can't pay the mortgage? You still might be able to stay in your home. Government- controlled mortgage company Fannie Mae is going to give borrowers on the verge of foreclosure the option of renting their homes for a year.

It's taken more than a year to work through the governmental bureaucracy, but federal funds finally are helping Stanislaus County families buy foreclosed homes. Richie and Cortney Hartsfield will be among the first to benefit. They hope to close escrow by Thanksgiving on a rehabilitated 1,821-square-foot Keyes home. "If this program didn't exist, we would not be in position to buy," said Richie Hartsfield.

Modesto risks losing $8.1 million in foreclosure relief funds from the federal government because the city hasn't found a way to spend the money effectively, even though it has known it was getting the cash for nearly a year.

Homeowners fearing foreclosure packed the Home Rescue Fair question and answer sessions Saturday. Their questions revealed as much the answers.

Experts at the Home Rescue Fair offered these facts and tips:

In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. How did this happen? Read the first of our four-part special report.

Homeowners with mortgage concerns can meet face to face with their lenders and get counseling and legal advice free today during a nationally sponsored foreclosure prevention workshop in Modesto.

We all talk about what-ifs.

Using taxpayer funds to keep out-of-work homeowners in their homes until they find another job is an option being looked at by some officials in the Obama administration, according to people familiar with government financial rescue programs.

Homeowners with mortgage concerns can meet face-to-face with their lenders, and get counseling and legal advice free Saturday during a nationally sponsored foreclosure prevention workshop in Modesto.

It's a great time to be a renter and lousy time to be a landlord.

Gov. Schwarzenegger came to Merced — the heart of California's foreclosure meltdown — to sign eight laws that protect homeowners and consumers from mortgage fraud and abusive lending practices.

WASHINGTON — Applications for home-building permits, a key gauge of future construction, fell in September by the largest amount in five months, a discouraging sign for the housing industry. A rebound in housing is needed to support a broader economic recovery.

Home sales prices edged up during September throughout the Northern San Joaquin Valley, providing a relatively strong finish to the traditional warm-weather selling season.

New homes in Stanislaus County cost less than half as much as those sold elsewhere in California. At least they did during August, but that was an unusual month.

Every dollar counts in this economy.

Sales of existing homes will fall slightly next year in California as people lose more jobs and cheap foreclosed homes become a smaller part of the market, California Association of Realtors economists predicted this week.

Consumer advocates say a growing number of older homeowners and a new crop of eager lenders could steer the reverse mortgage industry down the same financial course that toppled the subprime mortgage market and left taxpayers footing the bill.

The Obama administration said Thursday that its mortgage relief effort has helped 500,000 homeowners, and officials maintain the program is on track despite its disappointing launch.

Lenders are ramping up efforts to avoid home foreclosures, but a report by bank regulators says more than half of borrowers who get help fall behind again. More than 50 percent of homeowners with loans modified in the first half of last year had missed at least two months of payments a year later, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision said Wednesday.

Homeowners at risk of foreclosure are encouraged to attend a free workshop from noon to 7:30 p.m. today in Stockton.

Looking at monthly home sales statistics for your ZIP code can provide the gist of what houses in your neighborhood are worth.