First rung on property ladder gets harder to reach

By Noelle Knox, USA TODAY
It's 118 degrees in Baghdad, but Peter Hudson is willing to sweat it out there, literally, for 18 more months. Why? So he can save up enough money to buy his first home back in the States -- ideally with a swimming pool.
"I'm really, really hoping for a pool," says Hudson, 32, who works for a contractor providing private and corporate security outside Baghdad's Green