June 26, 2007 (LPAC) -- The Commerce Department reported today that new home sales fell by 1.6 percent last month, to an annual pace of 915,000. Rising interest rates and a glut of unsold homes on the market are feeding the worst housing crisis since 1991, and it's getting worse. "There are some pretty significant negative risks for economic growth," said Carl Riccadonna, an economist at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York, to Bloomberg. "We are not at the bottom yet in housing."

Home values in the U.S. declined 2.1 percent in April from the same month a year earlier, according to a report today by S&P/Case-Shiller, reported in Bloomberg. It was the fourth straight drop in the group's index, which started in 2001. Housing prices in 20 cities in April fell by the most in at least six years.