President Barack Obama promised Saturday to help lower Americans’ mortgage costs with a new plan, coming soon, that would revive the financial system and “get credit flowing again.”

…

“Soon my Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, will announce a new strategy for reviving our financial system that gets credit flowing to businesses and families,” Obama, a Democrat, said in his weekly radio address.

“We’ll help lower mortgage costs and extend loans to small businesses so they can create jobs.”

Link to NY Times coverage.

Meanwhile, New Homes sales take another dip – but this might help sales of existing homes:

US sales of new homes dropped by 14.7% in December as the credit crisis has made mortgages harder to get and fewer houses go on sale.

The Commerce Department said that sales fell to an annualised figure of 331,000 in December from 388,000 in November.

Economists had expected a December figure of 400,000.

…

However, while sales of new homes have drooped, there are signs that lower prices are encouraging to people to buy existing homes.

Figures from the National Association of Realtors released on Monday showed that sales of existing homes rose 6.5% in December.

Link to BCC coverage.