Government Considers Ways to Rent Foreclosed Homes

[dkf]

BY NICK TIMIRAOS

The Obama administration is examining ways to pull foreclosed properties off the market and rent them to help stabilize the housing market, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the plans may not advance beyond the concept phase, they are under serious consideration by senior administration officials because rents are rising even as home prices in many hard-hit markets continue to fall due to high foreclosure levels.

Trimming the glut of unsold foreclosed homes on the market is "worth looking at," said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in testimony to Congress last week.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904233404576458300001332210.html?mod=WSJ_RealEstate_LeftTopNews

[Volaris]

1. Something like this is what they

SHOULD have done the moment they took office...for as smart a man as The President surely is, sometimes it seems that ALL the people who work for him are just behind the curve, and more often than not, terribly so. Really? It took 3 years to have this idea???

just.......REALLY????

[gratuitous]

2. Horse: Long Gone; Stable Door: Get a padlock, Maw!

I don't remember the why now, but I'm sure it was a really good reason why mortgage cramdown wasn't considered as a solution to the disintegration of the housing bubble. Yes, lenders who specialized in liar loans and other unconventional instruments would have taken a little bath, but the buyers could have stayed in their houses and homes, living in them and keeping their properties in good repair. But the horrifying prospect of reckless lenders getting tagged for their own failures was just too much to contemplate. So, all the relief was geared toward them, and very little of it went to underwater buyers, who were relentlessly criticized for being greedy, or getting in over their heads, or being such consummate flim-flam artists that they were able to hoodwink major financial institutions.

Now, as properties have deteriorated and housing stock has gone to pot, the Fed and the White House finally begin reconsidering whether keeping houses occupied might be a good idea after all.

[dkf]

3. The banks didn't hold those loans. They sold them to investors like Retirement and pension plans.