Housing Crisis Bears Down on New York Town

The housing crisis isn't only hurting places like Las Vegas and central Florida -- the New York City suburb of Mount Vernon, N.Y., has been savaged as hard if not harder than many well-known trouble spots. David Schepp explains how this once-thriving working-class town has been hit hard by the ongoing real estate slump. Check the jump to read more.

Many mature housing markets, such as those in the northeastern U.S., have been spared the dramatic drops in prices seen in Florida, Nevada, Arizona and other areas that experienced massive overbuilding during the recent real estate boom and bust.

Still, there are pockets of devastation to be found -- few more evident than Mount Vernon, N.Y., which lies just north of New York City. In 2007, before the bursting of the real-estate bubble, the median price for a home in this working-class city of 69,000 was nearly $510,000, according toMoneymagazine's annual listing of Best Places to Live. Following the deep recession and mortgage crisis, however, today the median price is around $310,000 -- a decline of 37%.