WOW!!! Lot’s of exciting things to write about this week. Many of you have written wondering where I was last week. I was not writing here, but we were going non-stop from early morning to late at night at The Live Short Sale Breakthrough Event. There is a lot I want to tell you about – it was an amazing experience . . . great deals . . . great ideas . . . great people . . . and, yes – great Breakthroughs. I’ll tell you more about Breakthrough later, but first, there has been a lot of action in Congress today that you should know about.
The House just passed legislation aimed at helping 400,000 homeowners facing foreclosure and at helping shore up Fannie and Freddie.
Today’s 272-152 vote came after President Bush announced backing off a threatened veto. The White House objected to $3.9 billion in grants the bill would provide for local government to purchase foreclosed properties. It is expected the bill will become law soon after the Senate signs off.
Here’s a brief summary of what the bill does:
- Gives the Treasury Department the power to extend Fannie and Freddie an unlimited line of credit and buy an unspecified amount of their stock;
- Lets hundreds of thousands of homeowners refinance into more affordable, fixed-rate loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration;
- Creates a new regulator with tighter controls for Fannie and Freddie and modernizes the FHA;
- Provides about $15 billion in housing tax breaks, including a credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home buyers for people who bought homes between April 9, 2008, and July 1, 2009;
- Provides $3.9 billion in grants to local governments to buy foreclosed properties;
- Sets a cap of $625,000 on the loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may buy and the FHA may insure. It lets them buy and back mortgages up to 15 percent above the median home price in certain areas; and
- To pay for it all – the bill increases the statutory limit on the national debt by $800 billion, to $10.6 trillion.
As I have written previously, I do not think government can fix the housing crisis. The “crisis” we are experiencing is merely the market correcting itself from the over exuberance of a few years ago. It is the crisis and the correction itself that is the fix to the problem. And the pain experienced in the marketplace now is the symptom of a market healing itself.
The solution to the housing mess is to help the market heal itself – one house, one mortgage, and one family at a time. Short Sales play an indespensible role in this process. If you have not received my FREE CD on Short Sale Basics – just let me know and we’ll send it right out to you.
As far as the House Bill and what you should know, we’ll get into more detail over the next few days.
