The Slump Hits Home

Worrisome cracks are spreading through one of the last pillars of the economy--the housing market

The "For Sale" sign went up on John Share's lawn on Sept. 11. Since then, his family has had a handful of showings and open houses. But their five-bedroom rambler in St. Louis Park, a middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, Minn., has not sold. A communications officer for U.S. Bancorp, Share listed his house at $284,500 and recently reduced it to $275,000. "It's been almost two months," he says, "and still nothing."

In America's shaky housing market, many home sellers can relate to the Shares' plight. Economic fallout from September's terror attacks threatens to tip a nationwide housing slump into a nasty...

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