In another sign that the national housing boom is over, the Mortgage Bankers Association said applications for new loans fell last week to the lowest point all year. This happened despite a drop in interest rates, reports Reuters.

Historically low mortgage rates have fueled a five-year housing boom and most analysts see last week’s drop in rates running against the long-term trend to higher mortgage rates.

And that’s not going to help the working families that are finding it harder to buy their own home, reports USA Today. Overall home ownership is at an all-time high of 70 percent but the Center for Housing Policy says that the rate of homeownership for working families with children is lower now than in 1978.

The center says higher home prices racing ahead of wages, higher health care bills and the rising number of single parents have all created the trend.

Minority families find it even harder to buy homes. Ownership rates for minorities is stagnating at 45 percent. That makes former Black Entertainment television mogul Robert Johnson’s plan to take a Florida Bank and make it into a national financial company for African Americans seem like a good idea. He’s promising creative ways to raise home ownership rates.

And a center spokeswoman tells the paper that there are long-term consequences because homeowners children perform better in school and less likely to have behavior problems. The West has the lowest ownership rate of any region in the country. Of course, California’s high home prices skew that number but it will come back to us pretty soon because working families cannot afford anything like the median valley home price of $300,000-plus.

One company that promised to help working families, Ameriquest, has filed its settlement, reports the Los Angeles Times. The money will be paid to the court over the next few quarters but borrowers whom the company exploited will not see the money for a year. Some 108,000 borrowers in California will be eligible to share in the restitution. Ameriquest agreed to the deal to settle charges that it had exploited less educated borrowers by refinancing loans repeatedly to generate excessive fees.