AMERICA’S MOST STUBBORN HOME SELLERS: “Despite the fact that rents are now higher in many cities than monthly mortgage payments, the latest report on the health of the housing market offers a dismal picture, showing little sign that home prices are hitting bottom.” One reason is that sellers don’t want to cut the price. Sometimes they can’t afford to.

The Insta-Wife and I caught an episode of Real Estate Intervention on HGTV the other night. The couple had bought a house for $200,000, done a series of cash-out refinances until they owed about $450,000 on it, and didn’t want to sell it for less than $480,000 because they didn’t have any money to bring to the table to cover real estate commissions, etc. They blamed the bank.

There’s plenty of blame for the banks in some of these deals, but it was fun watching host Mike Aubrey digest their story and try not to grab them by the collar and scream You’re idiots! In the end, they wound up getting a mortgage adjustment, renting the house to cover the payments, and moving in with the husband’s parents. What happened to the quarter-million or so that they took out of the house? That wasn’t clear, but they had apparently squandered it somehow.