Reporting from Washington — Just as the nation’s housing market has begun showing signs of stabilizing, another wave of foreclosures is poised to strike, possibly as early as this summer, inflicting new punishment on families, communities and the still-troubled national economy.

Just how big the foreclosure wave will be is unclear. But loan defaults are up sharply. And with many government and banks’ self-imposed foreclosure moratoriums expiring, the biggest lenders indicate that they are likely to move more aggressively to clear up a backlog of troubled mortgages.

At least a dozen large development sites in the city’s South of Market district now sit empty or covered by asphalt because of the recession. If history is any guide, developers will either leave them fenced off or use them as parking lots.

Parcels stranded by the boom-turned-bust can be seen across the city, but two especially vivid examples are on display at either end of San Francisco’s zone of high-rise change, the terrain south of Market Street bounded by the bay, South Van Ness Avenue and Interstate 80.

One is the northeast corner of Harrison and Fremont streets on Rincon Hill, where cars spill from a Bay Bridge off-ramp. The other is the southwest corner of 10th and Market streets, a portal for drivers heading in from the city’s western neighborhoods.

Manhattan apartment sales plunged more than 50 percent and the average price dropped 21.4 to 24 percent from a year ago, as the U.S. recession forced many who own a piece of the Big Apple to eat humble pie, several reports said.

But the Manhattan market dropped precipitously as Wall Street and the rest of the New York’s private industries shed jobs.

U.S. housing prices will fall by a double-digit percentage from already beaten-down levels, resulting in an overall 40 percent plunge by the time foreclosures peak in the second half of 2010, Barclays Capital economist Michelle Meyer said.

“While the early signs of improvement are in place for housing, the market will likely remain out of balance for some time, given the flood of foreclosures,” Meyer wrote.

“Home prices are likely to continue to fall, albeit at a slowing pace, even after the economy technically emerges from the recession.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Regulators on Friday shut down five small banks, boosting to 45 the number of failures this year of federally insured banks. More are expected to succumb in the prolonged recession.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the failed banks: Community Bank of West Georgia, based in Villa Rica, Ga.; Neighborhood Community Bank, located in Newnan, Ga.; Horizon Bank in Pine City, Minn.; MetroPacific Bank in Irvine, Calif.; and Mirae Bank in Los Angeles.

The revised reading on gross domestic product, released Thursday by the Commerce Department, showed the economy from January through March didn’t fall as deeply as the 5.7 percent annualized decline reported a month ago. Economists expected the government would stick with its previous estimate.

A separate government report found new jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week, while continuing claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected. The data show jobs remain scarce even as the economy shows some signs of recovering from the longest recession since World War II.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that sales dropped 0.6 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000, from a downwardly revised April rate of 344,000. Sales were down nearly 33 percent from May last year.

Still, houses are still sitting on the market unsold for months. There were 292,000 new homes for sale at the end of May, down more than 2 percent from April. At this sluggish rate of sales, that’s a 10-month supply.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s foreclosure crisis — once largely confined to only a few corners of the country — is spreading to new areas as the economy teeters. The foreclosure rates in 40 of the nation’s counties that have the most households have already doubled from last year, a USA TODAY analysis of data from the listing firm RealtyTrac shows.

Unlike the foreclosure wave that began in 2007 and was driven by risky subprime loans, the latest increases are the result of the recession, which brought a sharp rise in unemployment across the country, Wachter and others say.

Existing-home sales in the West slipped 0.9 percent to an annual rate of 1.14 million in May, but are 11.8 percent higher than May 2008. The median price in the West was $197,700, down 30.6 percent from a year ago.

For the whole country, these are the numbers

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – rose 2.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 4.77 million units in May from a downwardly revised level of 4.66 million units in April, but remained 3.6 percent below the 4.95 million-unit pace in May 2008.

As we have been saying on this blog for the past two years, the huge wave of foreclosures keeps putting pressure on the housing market. Some parts of California are still way overpriced and home prices will continue to fall until they reflect economic fundamentals. This is just demand and supply, not enough people making enough money to buy homes at these prices.