Presidents' Day - 2009
February 16, 2009
Over the past several weeks, there has been much media coverage of the fact that February 12, 2009 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Our current President, Barrack Obama, is an admirer of Lincoln and, according to reports, has studied both the character and the actions of Lincoln' presidency. It will be interesting to see how his admiration of Lincoln translates into President Obama's character and actions as he leads this country out of its current economic downturn.
If, and it is a big if, the current recession is being blamed on housing and foreclosures and financial woes stemming from bad loans, then the president and congress and all the experts advisers appointed to solve this "crisis", we need to figure out how to stabilize the housing markets.
From the trenches of professional real estate agents, there are many potential purchasers. Financial institutions do have loans available. (They are being cautious about the qualifications of borrowers, but most folks agree that that is a good thing.) The provisions in the current stimulus package that may prove more helpful than the drafters of the bill thought could be the raising of the conforming loan limits from $417,000 to $729,000 in some areas and allowing investors to have loans on up to ten houses rather than limiting them to only four properties.
The latter could be extremely beneficial as investors can purchase distressed properties, fix them up and resale them at a higher price, thus increasing value in the market place. The former could break the log jam in the sale of properties over $400,000, a stagnant part of the current real estate market.
So, as this Presidents' Day holiday begins the fourth week of the Obama administration, which supposedly is going to focus on housing, we hope that the president and his advisers will recognize that it may take unpopular decisions to turn the housing market around.
Leadership and character are about unpopular decisions. Both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln made many unpopular decisions. Fortunately for us and for them, the decisions were for the most part correct ones.
Over the past several weeks, there has been much media coverage of the fact that February 12, 2009 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Our current President, Barrack Obama, is an admirer of Lincoln and, according to reports, has studied both the character and the actions of Lincoln' presidency. It will be interesting to see how his admiration of Lincoln translates into President Obama's character and actions as he leads this country out of its current economic downturn.
If, and it is a big if, the current recession is being blamed on housing and foreclosures and financial woes stemming from bad loans, then the president and congress and all the experts advisers appointed to solve this "crisis", we need to figure out how to stabilize the housing markets.
From the trenches of professional real estate agents, there are many potential purchasers. Financial institutions do have loans available. (They are being cautious about the qualifications of borrowers, but most folks agree that that is a good thing.) The provisions in the current stimulus package that may prove more helpful than the drafters of the bill thought could be the raising of the conforming loan limits from $417,000 to $729,000 in some areas and allowing investors to have loans on up to ten houses rather than limiting them to only four properties.
The latter could be extremely beneficial as investors can purchase distressed properties, fix them up and resale them at a higher price, thus increasing value in the market place. The former could break the log jam in the sale of properties over $400,000, a stagnant part of the current real estate market.
So, as this Presidents' Day holiday begins the fourth week of the Obama administration, which supposedly is going to focus on housing, we hope that the president and his advisers will recognize that it may take unpopular decisions to turn the housing market around.
Leadership and character are about unpopular decisions. Both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln made many unpopular decisions. Fortunately for us and for them, the decisions were for the most part correct ones.
posted by shirley harry at 11:02 AM
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