The Commerce Department says construction of new homes and apartments fell 12.8 percent last month -- the lowest pace in a half-century. Earlier reports had expected the government to announce a small increase in housing starts. To guide us through the numbers, The Takeaway is joined by Nicolas Retsinas, Director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and former Assistant Secretary of Housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He has an eye on how housing starts fit into the larger picture of big economic indicators. Also joining the conversation is Mori Hosseini, a homebuilder and CEO of ICI Homes, who sees the housing market first-hand.

Even for people who work in the real estate markets every day it is hard to tell what way the housing market is heading. New-home construction held steady at almost 11 percent in March, according to government data released yesterday. But foreclosures are up, with nearly 804,000 homes getting a notice in just the first three months of this year. That's a 24 percent increase compared to the same time last year. But other analysts are seeing hope and some first time homebuyers are finding themselves in great positions to buy.

To help us parse the numbers we turned to two experts: Behrooz Shahidi, a realtor in New Jersey, and Michael Corkery, housing reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

An uptick in new and existing home sales across the country has real estate watchers and economists hoping that the housing market might have finally hit bottom, especially in the South and West regions of the nation. In the South, new home sales rose almost 10% in February, compared to January, and in the West the rise was 6.6%. Joining The Takeaway are two real estate brokers, Ed Snively of El Centro, California, and Ryan Ward of Atlanta, Georgia who have been riding the tumultuous waves of the housing market in both of those regions.

We're spending $275 billion dollars on a federal housing market bailout plan. But is this money going to fix the problem which has created ghost towns of abandoned or empty homes across the United States? Richard LeFrak is chairman and CEO of LeFrak Organization, a real estate builder and developer joins The Takeaway. He has a provocative idea what might actually fix the housing mess: giving immigrants legal residency in exchange for buying up our homes.

Takeaway contributor and personal finance whiz Alvin Hall has been helping homeowners dissect the Obama administration's housing plan. Earlier we heard from Pamela Zombeck, a homeowner in Salem, Massachusetts who was struggling to pay her mortgage. Now we sic Alvin on a more complicated situation: the speculator, the guys who bought homes as investments and now have a lot to lose as mortgage payments escalate and housing prices fall. Scott Mintz of Los Angeles bought four homes and has a lot of questions for Alvin.

Click here for Part One

The Obama administration has released the details of its housing plan, which is meant to be a finger in the dam for the tidal wave of homes facing foreclosure throughout the U.S. Yesterday the administration launched their website, that will help struggling homeowners determine their eligibility for assistance. We can do one better than that. Joining us is Takeaway contributor and financial adviser Alvin Hall who is here to help homeowner Pamela Zombeck in Salem, Massachusetts sort through it all.

Click here for part two

Facing a triple threat from the spiraling economy, mortgage foreclosures and an ailing auto industry, President Obama began his economic counteroffensive this week. He signed a huge stimulus bill, was given a multi-billion dollar plan to restructure car makers and announced a $50 billion foreclosure rescue. All of these moves resonate in Detroit, a city struggling with foreclosures and ground zero of the auto industry meltdown. Jerome Vaughn is the News Program Director at WDET-FM in Detroit and he joins The Takeaway this morning.

It's the stuff of melodramas: "I can't pay the mortgage!" says the pretty young mother. "You must pay the mortgage!" replies the landlord, dressed in black with a dragoon's moustache. "I'll pay the mortgage!" says Dudley Doright. But what if you really can't pay the mortgage? And you really don't want to leave your home despite the eviction notice and there's no dashing Dudley Doright in sight? Answering that question is a group of activists in Baltimore who are using nonviolent resistance tactics as a way of keeping people in their homes. Joining us now is Melody Simmons, a reporter for WEAA in Baltimore, and Donna Hanks a homeowner facing foreclosure.

President Obama's housing plan encourages banks to modify mortgages to help homeowners stave off foreclosure. However, the nation's 14 largest banks reported that more than half of the loans they modified last year were delinquent again after just six months. But several small mortgage companies, which have more experience with modifications, say that less than 25 percent of their modified loans became delinquent again. Vikas Bajaj wrote about this for our partner, The New York Times, in today's paper and he joins us now. For more, read Vikas Bajaj's article, Modifying Mortgages Can Be Tricky in today's New York Times.

Listen to our earlier segment on the housing plan with personal finance adviser Alvin Hall.

Yesterday President Obama unveiled his $275 billion plan to help millions of homeowners refinance their mortgages or avoid foreclosure. President Obama's plan claims to be simple, but it's not. Luckily we have Alvin Hall, personal finance adviser and Takeaway contributor, who has been up all night reading through the plan. Also joining us for his first-hand account is Carlos Saenz, a homeowner struggling to pay his mortgage in Orlando, Florida.

Two major economic indicators are released today: the numbers for new and existing home sales for November. Together, the numbers are expected to indicate the economy is worsening. Chip Case, the co-producer of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, joins The Takeaway to talk about how the housing market is the backbone of the American economy and if there is a prospect for good news in real estate.

"They say 'We have a double bottom line.' They are concerned about the community and concerned about making profits."
--Daniel Gross on ethical subprime lending

"We are very unhappy and have made it clear that the money that was used to buy stock in banks has not been used by all the banks the way it should have been."
-- Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Chair of the House Financial Services Committee