As we move into the heart of the home buying season - May and June - mortgage rates are beginning to soften some, but admittedly are still well above where we were a year ago.

According to Freddie Mac, rates on 30-year mortgages are somewhat below 8.25 percent. In February 30-year money was about 8.38. A year ago, however, rates were just under 7 percent.

The Mortgage Bankers Association also reports there are currently fewer people in the market for mortgage loans. Overall, the number of people looking for loans is down about 20 percent this year from the same period last year.

OK, Sometimes The Government Does Help

The Treasury Department is out with a report showing that something called the "Community Reinvestment Act," which was passed in the early '90s, really is beginning to make a difference in communities where residents are struggling to make their neighborhoods a better place.

Under the CRA, national banks are urged to make loans inside their local communities to help low-income people borrow money for homes, small businesses and fulfill other community needs, such as starting day care centers.

The Treasury Department says between 1993 and 1998 banks loaned more than $600 million inside their communities, much of it going to low- and moderate-income people to help them become homeowners.

The government argues that helping people become homeowners helps stabilizes neighborhoods, and gives people a vested interest in maintaining property values and defending against things that erode those values - such as teen violence, drug houses and other problems.

Let's all move to Kokomo

According to the National Association of Home Builders, the best place to stretch your housing dollar in America is Kokomo, Ind., where families earning the median local income of $53,500 could buy 91 percent of the homes sold in the town in the last quarter of 1999.

On the other end of the affordability scale, the best place to shrink your housing dollar was San Francisco, where families earning the median household income of $72,400 could only afford to buy 11 percent of the homes sold there in the last quarter of last year.

The Home Builder's "Housing Opportunity Index" looks at home sales in 192 metro areas and measures of the percentage of homes sold that a family earning the median income can afford to buy. Nationwide, it found that the median American family earning $47,800 could afford 63.8 percent of homes sold in the last quarter.

The most affordable housing markets by region in the fourth quarter: Binghamton, N.Y. in the Northeast; Kokomo in the Midwest; Wilmington-Newark, Del.-Md. in the South; and Anchorage, Alaska in the West. The least affordable metro areas by region were Portsmouth-Rochester, N.H.- Maine in the Northeast; Ann Arbor, Mich., in the Midwest; Laredo, Texas in the South; and San Francisco in the West.

Housing starts fall

The Commerce Department reports that new home construction fell by 11.2 percent in March - an indication that consistently elevated mortgage interest rates are deflating housing demand.

The department reports builders began work on new homes at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.6 million last month, the largest decline since January 1994 when housing starts fell by 17 percent.

Housing construction is seen as a broad indicator of economic activity. Economists note that the Fed has increased interest rates five times since last June in an effort to cool the economy, a strategy that apparently is working.

Sea the World

Christie's Great Estates has begun marketing condos on a huge ocean liner, The World of ResidenSea, that when completed will be a floating resort that will travel worldwide in search of fun spots for the rich.

The base price for a condo is $2 million and you need not apply unless you have assets of at least $5 million.

Only 107 condos will be sold. Like most cruise ships, The World boosts swimming pools, tennis courts, luxury restaurants and nightclubs. Planned stops are in Cannes, for the film festival; Rio for carnival; Palm Beach for tennis; and New Zealand for the yacht races.