There are different ways of coping with the housing downturn, as this week has shown. For example, the response of the developer Frank McKinney - “crisis, what crisis?” - has been to press ahead with plans for the world's largest green home, a $29million 15,000sqft mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

But then McKinney is not your everyday developer. As The Times reported this week, the multimillionaire took the guests at his birthday party on a conscience-pricking tour of the slums of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, where homes for the poor are put up by his charitable foundation - McKinney action figures are sold for $250 to support this cause.

The pictures of McKinney with his big smile and Jon Bon Jovi-esque hair were in marked contrast to the images in Monday's newspapers of the ascetic US Treasury chief, Hank Paulson - whose action figure would be a bit nightmarish.

Late on Sunday night Paulson's response to the latest manifestation of the ailing US housing market - the briefly imperilled position of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - was to launch a rescue plan for these folksily named mortgage giants. Fannie and Freddie play a crucial role in the US market, which is still subsiding outside such rarefied zones as Palm Beach.

Fannie and Freddie's predicament is the reason why the Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML) is not proposing the establishment of a similar state-sponsored UK body to guarantee mortgages, so encouraging banks to start lending again to homebuyers.

But the CML has made it clear this week that the Government needs to act to alleviate the housing downturn, the £50billion bail-out of the banks having been no help at all, as Bricks and Mortar has highlighted.

Under the CML's plan, banks would once more be able to package up high-grade mortgages, sell them to investors - such as other banks, or fund managers - who could use these as collateral to get loans from the Bank of England. The investors would lend this money to other banks, so boosting the availability of funds essential to the supply of mortgages.

The latest survey of the members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) suggests that the possibility of more cash would steel the nerves of tentative househunters. It would also further embolden the audacious. Ray Boulger, of John Charcol, the mortgage broker, says that there are people who think now is the moment to seize a bargain but are being thwarted by tightfisted banks.

As these banks (and building societies) make up the CML, it's reasonable to ask why they are not doing more, although a few can now claim to be active: some mortgage rates are falling, based on the reckoning that the Bank of England could look beyond the latest higher inflation figures and lower the base rate for the sake of the economy.

Today C&G and Nationwide are cutting the cost of some of their mortgages. These deals offer the potential for remortgage savings for those who are trying to cope with the housing downturn and economic uncertainty by trimming their budgets.

The desire to retrench seems to transcend countries and income barriers: solar panels and other eco-features will enable the residents of McKinney's Palm Beach mansion to lower their monthly utility bill from $4,500 to just $800.

McKinney counters claims that a new-build house more than seven times the size of the average property cannot be green by predicting that the trickle-down effect will ensure that every other home has such planet-friendly installations. UK housebuilders struggling to sell their products may have something to learn from this man's confidence.

Small but still beautiful

The appeal of the bijou residence was proved by the hullabaloo caused by a Bricks and Mortar report last year on a £170,000 cupboard-sized flat in Chelsea. Following our story, TV crews and reporters crowded into the one-room 72 sq ft apartment. Since then we have been trying to find you something similarly exiguous and have come up with Le Cabinet, a flat designed by the architect Jennifer Benningfield. It is 280 sq ft, but still a cupboard, although exquisitely kitted out - and in Notting Hill. It was briefly for sale at £380,000, but the owner may now opt instead to rent it out - to an extremely tidy tenant.

Chips with everything

A new device proves that there are people who maybe love their homes too much. This USB chip allows the computer-bound owner of a property to assuage his homesickness by viewing the inside of the property (there are video cameras in every room).

This technological innovation will be available for the residents of William Beaver House, a slick pied-à-terre complex in New York popular with 16-hour-day masters of the universe. But as economic problems make presentee-ism a must for everyone who wants to stay employed in these tricky times, expect it to be a must-have gadget for home-loving executives elsewhere.

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