When you've been covering real estate as long as I have, and given the intensity of the economic news of late, you can't help but absorb the anxiety and uncertainty of the people you write about or hear from seven days a week.

I've been checking on 401(k) assets three times a week, to see whether I'll have something to supplement my Social Security and pension checks when I retire.

Immersed as a child in the cautionary tales of my Depression-era parents and grandparents, I've often been described as cheap - in fact, one reader was incredulous that I spend $3.91 for a vente Starbucks latte every Sunday. But lately, I've found myself being even more careful with money.

My grandparents lost their house to back taxes in 1930; my parents barely averted foreclosure during a 1960s recession that left my father jobless for a year, so my concerns have a genetic basis. I have recurring dreams of living in the toolshed I've been repairing at my parish's burial ground. In this vision, however, the world has been destroyed, and the squirrels (of course) and I are the only ones left.

My personal fears are far from justified. Fret though I might, my family and I are better off than millions of Americans caught in an ever-tightening economic vise.

 

By BILL DEVLIN, Bucks County Courier Times
After months of searching, Buckingham supervisors found their new township manager without having to leave the building.

Acting township manager Dana Cozza was selected over more than 60 applicants to fill the post that had been vacant since January when Ray Stepnoski was fired.

Board Chairwoman Maggie Bash cited Cozza’s nine years of experience with the township.

“She is also a licensed attorney, and I think that will be helpful,” said Bash.

Bash and Supervisor Jon Forest voted to hire Cozza.

 

Elizabeth G. Hersh, Phladelphia Inquirer
 

On the day he signed the massive bailout of the country's financial giants, President Bush declared: "We have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country."

But the response was a day late and - though it's hard to believe, given that $700 billion price tag - more than a dollar short.

Our country's worst domestic crisis since the Great Depression has manifested itself in flailing financial markets, dried-up credit, and lost jobs. But in communities far from Washington and Wall Street, the crisis is personal.

This may come as something of a shock, but there aren't many people interested in buying houses now.

I'm being facetious - no, really. But Trulia, the real estate search engine, has just paid a pollster big bucks to figure this one out.

When Trulia sent me the results with great fanfare, I replied that it could have saved money by just leaning out the door and asking the first person who walked by.

There was, however, a response in the otherwise less-than-informative list that caught my eye: Only 4 percent of people who weren't homeowners said that "waiting for the new housing-recovery act to take effect" was keeping them from buying - "indicating that this act will likely have little effect on home purchases made by those who do not currently own their own home."

What surprised me, of course, was that anyone would mention the Economic and Housing Recovery Act of 2008, signed into law on July 31, not that only 4 percent were hoping it would help them into home ownership.