News broke this afternoon of a new federal initiative to help housing finance agencies, such as VHFA.

The plan is part of the Obama administration's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan.

Read about it at the U.S. Treasury site.

The Valley News published a piece yesterday looking at workforce housing in Vermont/New Hampshire's Upper Valley.

In a nutshell, "Home prices are still beyond the means of many people in the Upper Valley."

As a coda to our announcement a couple weeks ago regarding VHFA's top mortgage loan originators, today we named our top five participating lending institutions for fiscal year 2009:

1. Chittenden Bank
2. New England Federal Credit Union
3. Universal Mortgage Corp.
4. Mortgage Financial Services
5. Heritage Family Credit Union

While Vermont doesn't have any urban area as populated as Portland, Ore., we might have something to learn by reading a recent report published by Living Cities.