I gave President Obama some advice (over a year ago) on how to fix the foreclosure epidemic:
President Obama to focus on Foreclosures (published on 2/18/2009)
and
OButter’s Plan – the Real Solution (published on 2/23/2009)
My 2 key points, boiled down to a couple sentence each:
1. If the bailout, loan modification, or whatever you call it – if it isn’t helping reduce loan balances on upside-down houses, it isn’t solving anything. At best it’s postponing the problems into the future, at worst it’s encouraging more people to walk away from their mortgages.
2. If the federal government wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars helping out, why not build a government-owned REIT which could work with homeowners to rent/lease/purchase their own houses back as their credit gets repaired and at market values consistent with the changing times (up or down as the market dictates.)?
This morning it’s being reported the federal government is going to explore reducing mortgage balances.
It’s probably too little, and it’s probably too late – by the time they read my suggestions and get around to actually *helping* fix the problem, the problem will be over! But at least they’re moving in the right direction.
Your wishes he could help govern without being in politics Realtor,
Chris Butterworth
Chris Butterworth is: Realtor. Analyst. Husband. Father. Writer. Amateur Photographer. Triathlete. Soccer Dad. Big fan of technology, efficiency, and the Arizona Wildcats.
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The (admittedly leftist) magazine The Nation posted today about the same topic, from the same viewpoint: loan balance writedowns are required.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/545663/obama_s_slow_march_toward_real_foreclosure_relief