Housing Questions for the Presidential Candidates

"The person inaugurated president in 386 days will have troubles aplenty – the Iraq war, terrorism, global warming and the deficit – but one thing he or she won't have to worry about is housing. Taxpayers foot the bill for a four-story Georgian-style mansion with off-street parking and a rose garden."

"For millions of the president's constituents, however – from urban residents squeezed by unaffordable rents to suburbanites hit by the subprime mortgage crisis – housing is a major, daily concern, albeit one that has attracted relatively little attention in the months of campaigning and dozens of debates that have preceded this week's pivotal Iowa caucuses."

"The woes of subprime debtors-and the banks and investment houses who bet on them-forced housing onto the national radar screen in the closing weeks of the Iowa campaign. But foreclosures represent just one piece of a mosaic of housing worries."