The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released their year end reports regarding the housing market. What these reports have shown is that the housing market is still in a decline. The enormous amount of foreclosures that are available on the market are driving home prices even low. Lenders, looking at the escalating amount of properties on their books are driving prices even lower in an effort to get faster sales.

Fourth quarter reports show that home prices fell 4% compared to the same quarter in the previous year. This was the largest drop in value since 2009. The report also indicates that the drop in prices varies from state to state. Idaho saw the largest drop in home prices, 16% and North Dakota saw an increase of over 5%, proving home prices have much to do with the local economy.

Foreclosed homes accounted for 37% of all sales in the last quarter. This is a rise from the previous quarter by 1%. Foreclosed properties also sold for 28% less than equivalent properties in the same area that was not distressed.

It is estimated that 1 in 7 homes are currently behind in their mortgage payment or are in the process of foreclosure. 1 in 4 homes are “upside down” meaning they owe more than what the home is valued. Both of these figures lead analysts to believe there will be more foreclosures flooding the market and driving prices lower during 2011.

Home inventory has risen to an all time high, estimated at over 12 months, and it is anticipated that the figure could remain that high during the first quarter of 2011. Other reports released by Zillow and the National Association of Realtors show that anticipated home purchases have dropped in January and February as potential buyers are holding out for another drop in pricing.

The clash of tablets appears to be on the rage these recently. But, if new figures are any indication, it probably means they are still warming up.

Apple Inc, the undisputed company leader in the industry, has sold more than 14 million iPads as of December. But, market shares dropped in the third quarter of 2010 from 95 percent to 75 percent the succeeding quarter, according to the research firm Strategy Analytics.

During the same period, shipments of Android-powered tablets increased from 2.3 percent to 21.6 percent. However, those figures on market-shares represent shipments from manufacturers to vendors, and not the sales to end-users.

To sum it all, more than 17 million tablets were shipped in the entire world in 2010. More than half of them or 9.7 million were included in the holiday shopping season in the fourth quarter.

Durring the fourth quarter, there were 2.1 millions shipments for Android tablet while only 300,000 devices equipped with other operating systems were shipped.

But, sales for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is now the most popular tablet that runs Android operating system, were not as high as the company had hoped for, the Wall Street Journal noted.

Samsung’s Lee Young-hee said in an earnings call on Friday that there were two million Tabs shipped by the manufacturer in South Korea, but only “a small number” were bought by consumers.

Still, Apple’s financial reports showed a decrease on iPad’s success in the last quarter of 2010, CNN noted. There were still 525,000 iPads left unsold than in the preceding quarter.