Who doesn't have an unmarried friend who lost the house, or at least their investment in the condo, when the relationship went sour?

The key question when buying property together, according to a new book -- "Living Together: A Legal Guide for Unmarried Couples" -- seems pretty simple: Does your legal relationship match your private agreement?

But who wants to have that conversation when you are newly in love, or at least new to nesting?

No one, the book's author admitted to WalletPop.

Imagine a town so motivated to move houses out of the way of progress that it will pay you $10,000 to take one off their hands. Imagine buyers so unmotivated there are no takers.

This is no fantasy on either end. It's status quo in the Chicago suburban village of Barrington, Ill., though you can only collect the $10,000 if you agree to keep the house somewhere in the village itself. Still, even if you want to schlep it on over to a neighboring town, the houses are a relative bargain, with bids starting at $1.

The homes are old -- though not technically historic now that the village voted them out of the historic district -- and former and current users variously describe them as "claptrap" and "charming."

How well is the government's loan modification working? WalletPop's four-part special report continues with profiles of some of those trying to get help. To read the overview, click here.

Christine Attalla is among the lucky. The suburban Chicago homeowner not only got a temporary loan modification, but she's on track to convert it to a long-term adjustment before Christmas.

She even calls herself lucky, although when she does there's a quiver in her voice. That's because in the process, her credit took a beating.

For a solo entrepreneur -- Attalla, 38 and divorced, runs her own public relations company -- poor credit is a serious problem.

It all began last spring, when Attalla realized the economic downturn was making it increasingly difficult for her to manage her $3,000-a-month payment on her Bolingbrook home. And she was pregnant, so she knew she'd have less earning power later in the year.

Attalla heard from a friend about the modification program, applied in April through her lender, CitiMortgage, and waited.

She was approved for a three-month trial reduction -- for June, July and August -- which cut her monthly payments in half. If she kept current, she said, she would qualify for a permanent modification that started with a 2% interest rate and tiered up after a decade. So far, so good.

How well is the government's loan modification working? WalletPop's four-part special report continues with profiles of some of those trying to get help. To read the overview, click here.

Kathy Partak went into loan modification armed with the powerful combination of knowledge and motivation. She had worked in the mortgage business, so she knew her rights and the right vocabulary to use. And she had a step-rate loan that was about to step up dramatically.

Add to that an on-the-job shoulder injury that left her unemployed and Partak figured she was a perfect candidate for modifying the loan on her three-bedroom home in Auburn, Calif.

But Chase Manhattan Bank denied her a modification, Partak said, telling her, "Unemployment is not a permanent hardship."

"Hopefully not!" said Partak, 42. "But it's one of the reasons they allow for on their paperwork of qualification."

How well is the government's loan modification working? WalletPop's four-part special report continues with profiles of some of those trying to get help. To read the overview, click here.

Public relations consultant Mark Bonacorso faced the good and bad news of divorce with resolve. The good: he got the 3,500-square-foot adobe in northwest Tucson. The bad: he also got the first and second mortgages and the $2,700-a-month payments.

He wanted to make it work, especially since his home was worth less than he owed.

At first, with business strong at his firm, Media Ink, this seemed feasible. Then, as the recession slowed work, forcing him to lay off his two employees in March, those payments became daunting.

Bonacorso was not looking for Bank of America, his lender, to cut his principal. He called hoping to reduce his monthly payments by combining his first and second mortgages, lowering their interest rates -- now 5.875% on his first; 7.625% on his second -- and extending the loan's term from 30 years to at least 40.

How well is the government's loan modification working? Find out in this four-part WalletPop special report, which begins with this overview and continues with three profiles of those trying to get help, which can be found here, here and here.

If the goal of the federal government's loan modification program was to frustrate applicants, then it certainly is succeeding. But if its goal was to prevent foreclosures, the effort may simply be postponing that eventuality for many.

With an estimated 3.1 million mortgages at least two months delinquent, through the end of October, just 650,994 homeowners had received adjustments through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) -- a notable uptick from past reports and a measurable step toward the Obama administration's goal of helping 4 million by 2012.

But from the halls of Congress to Internet message boards, anger rises about mixed messages, delays and denials without explanation and, most tangibly, the sharp decline in converting short-term loan adjustments into something more meaningful.

Buy apartments, hotels, land and distressed properties, but focus on infill while avoiding the fringes; hold onto office buildings until the market improves; look for deals in shopping malls, but only in upscale areas.

Oh, and go ahead and grab that Miami Beach ocean-view condo you've had your eye on.

That was the advice to real estate investors from experts in a webcast release WalletPop tapped into this week for the Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2010 Report, co-sponsored by the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Milan and Florence weighed in at over $1.6 million for a home, on average; Rome just under $1.3 million. And that's dollars, not lira (which, of course, don't even exist anymore).

Also out of reach for many Americans these days are the pink sands of Hamilton, Bermuda, Bucaresti, Romania and Shanghai, all averaging above $1.3 million, not to mention Vancouver and Dublin at $1.1 million -- and Dubai trailing not far behind.

The most expensive market is not in Italy, however. It's in Singapore, where homes average nearly $1.9 million. Coldwell Banker points out that is "10% lower than La Jolla" but fails to mention it is also 10 times the average home value in everyday places like Phoenix, Mobile, Ala, Lexington, KY, and Syracuse, NY.

Members of Congress seem to be holding their noses as they vote to extend the new homebuyers tax credit through April. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the $8,000 credit yesterday and the House followed suit today. But not without some whining -- or is that warning?

According to the Associated Press, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., was among the skeptics.

"For the vast majority of cases, the homebuyer tax credit amounted to a free gift since it did not affect their decision to purchase a home," Bond told the Associated Press. "And for the small minority of buyers whose decision was directly caused by the credit, this raises the question of whether we are subsidizing buyers who may not have been able to afford buying a home in the first place."The extension is expected to cost $10.8 billion in lost taxes.

Bond's gripe has been a familiar refrain in Washington, ever since the benefit first was offered in February. Opposition mounted after the Department of Treasury released a report last week about fraudulent activities.

Not surprisingly, the beleaguered real estate industry disagreed and had lobbied hard for the extension, estimating that 350,000 of the 1.4 million first-time home buyers who qualified for the credit through August would not have bought homes otherwise.

"Well-funded marketing campaigns and perverse incentives to brokers are targeting seniors' home equity and using reverse mortgages as their tools," attorney Tara Twomey said in the NCLC news release.