Debt-Ceiling Crisis Could Wallop the Housing Sector

``Equally troublesome is the possibility of the federal government prioritizing its bills, having run out of borrowing authority, and skipping payments to contractors, government workers, or beneficiaries of social programs such as Medicare or Social Security--leaving a lot of Americans with a lot less money to buy a house or make a mortgage payment. Analysts' estimates of how much that would hurt the market range from "a bit" to "a ton."''