Rural housing loans are holding up quite well compared to the rest of the country’s housing economy, according to US Department of Agriculture Rural Development Housing Administrator Russ Davis. “This summer we were at our second lowest foreclosure rate in recent memory going back 10 or 20 years,” Davis says.

Davis says rural housing didn’t have the boom that urban markets had, which is part of the reason rural housing loans are in better shape and in fact tripled over last year.

He also credits solid underwriting and loan counseling in the rural housing market, and the fact that farm income is not the sole component of rural economies, so there is more diversity and less risk of deficiencies and foreclosures.

It's possible that the same scenario could apply in Australia, if current world financial turmoil continues and deepens, resulting in further falls in urban housing prices here.

In Australia, the biggest surge in regional housing prices has been in the booming mining towns, rather than in farming-based centres.