Has anyone else heard about this?
From the AP:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration may turn thousands of government-owned foreclosures into rental properties to help boost falling home prices.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday it is seeking input from investors on how to rent homes owned by government-controlled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration.
The U.S. government rescued Fannie and Freddie in September 2008 and has funded them since the financial crisis. The mortgage giants own or guarantee about half of the nation's mortgages and nearly all new mortgages.
At the end of last month, the government owned roughly 248,000 foreclosed homes, officials said. About 70,000 of those are listed for sale. But officials expect the number of foreclosures to soar in the coming months.
Many foreclosures have been stalled so attorneys general and federal regulators can investigate whether lenders cut corners and improperly handled thousands of cases. Once a settlement is finalized, foreclosures are expected to pick up again and further depress home prices.
The full story is at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GOVERNMENT_HOME_RENTALS?S...
What could go wrong?
In a word, everything. How could the government screw this up? For starters, it would put the government permanently in the landlord business. Second how is the government going to determine who gets certain houses? A recent news story told of residents on public assistance being placed in luxury condos that many people in the county who worked full time could not afford.
Would the government start subsidizing those houses so the poor could move in? What will this do to middle class neighborhoods, where people have paid for their houses to escape the carnage that comes with public housing?
There is a solution, though it is something of a painful solution. The government is holding housing so the government should simply liquidate the housing. We’ve been on a housing bubble. Yes, that is going to drive down the prices of houses but by the same token, as those values go down, they will be affordable to people who might not otherwise be able to pay for them. It is the market at work. Such a move will keep the government out of the landlord business.
To be really cynical and it is hard not to be cynical with the Obama regime, are they using this just to create another government dependency class? Will they offer these houses with a subsidy that will create a new entitlement group that will always vote against any cut to their entitlement?
I would not hold my breath on the government doing the right thing here. Our only hope is for the House to block any such effort until 2013, when we can get the Obama regime out of power.
Until then, it is still going to be a bumpy ride.
Permalink Reply by Mark Smithey on Judson, it also looks like a slick way to extend their communist philosophy. In the Soviet Union the state is "God" and home-ownership is not allowed because they liken it to stealing from God...or so I have been told. Don't know if it is still that was today. And your other points are a distinct possibility. These guys are sneaky and ruthless. How can anyone support such people as we have in office now?
I get the impression Obama and his pals hate Americans so much they are enjoying the chance to see us lose our homes and kicked to the curb while public housing takes over.
Permalink Reply by Lois K. Knoffer on Folks, I was at our Tampa Patriots Ink meeting last nite. One of the committee members was reporting
that if a mortgage holder is ONE day late on their payment, the gov't is foreclosing on them. So it isn't
just a housing bubble. The freeloaders will only stay in the house until they can rip out all the plumbing,
electrical wires, sell all the appliances and leave NOTHING but a shell of a house. And YOU and I
are paying the bill! ! ! while Ovomit collects the votes.
I live in a modest mid-class neighborhood. Apx. 1 mi. south of my development were some beautiful
up-scale apartments. During one of the financial downturns the owners began taking Section 8 housing
people. Our crime rate went thru the roof! ! That's what one can expect if gov't fills repo houses with
vermin! ! ! I noticed in London the street scum are being called "feral".
Is there no end of the evil of this drecht? ? That's yiddish for poopoo.
Permalink Reply by Edward M. Plitt on 
Permalink Reply by Chuck Lowery on Permalink Reply by David Hare on If title on those homes is as messed up as believed, what is the alternative? Let them sit there & decay?
They are unsellable with clouded title.
The government will rent them at market rates. That provides the cash flow to have them maintained and protect the neighborhoods. Personally I'd prefer them to be occupied at Market Rates to prevent further decay to the houses and more loss of value to the neighborhood.
Congress can do nothing about this. The houses are already owner by the GSEs (Fannie & Freddie, etc) and something has to be done to maintain them.
I repeat, what's your solution, given the title defects? And the difficulty in getting qualified people with loans, thanks to the efforts to focus on deficits instead of job-creating demand.
Permalink Reply by Chuck Lowery on 
Permalink Reply by Royce Latham on 
Permalink Reply by Ralph Roshto on David,
Have you ever been to a government housing project? These people are destructive animals, filled with hate, drugs, and teaching their children to have children, use the system, use drugs, hate 'The Man', and destroy civilization. They would not only be unable to afford to pay rent, they would REFUSE to pay rent, even if they could afford it. I would rather see an empty house stay empty than see "Criminilized Ownership", and that is exactly what this would be. Once the government has possesion of these houses, YOUR HOME value would FALL...Dramatically. YOU would be financing the government taking over the housing market.
I would rather see them all burn down than see the government criminalizing them. It would be a lesser loss.
You want to see a solution? You asked for one, so here it is...Desolve Fannie and Freddie. That would resolve almost ALL of the housing problem.
Permalink Reply by Ken B on Permalink Reply by Anita Weiss on I agree about desolving Fannie and Freddie in addition to ACORN forcing banks to make loans to unqualified people.
There's no skin in the game when you neither own the home nor pay much rent. Section 8 is a money maker for landlords in the inner city because they charge the upper rate of what Section 8 will pay which is much higher then the market will bear. However, the downside for the landlord is a tenant can ruin the property with no hope of getting paid for it yet having to keep it up to the govt standard in order to keep the money rolling in. I was a single building landlord, looked into Section 8 and decided against it.
Permalink Reply by Dana Lynn Agnew on David, where does it day the titles are unclear or clouded? That is the least of the problems this would cause. Have you ever lived in or near a neighborhood where greedy real estate owners have contracted for Section 8 tenants? I have, many times unfortunately, and I guarantee you, you would feel differently if you had. You would come away with a whole new perspective on the "perpetual poor". There is an entire subset of people in this country to whom being poor is not a temporary unfortunate situation, but a lifestyle; one to which they acclimate their children to carry on, generation after generation. They can play our bureacracy like a $2.00 harmonica. They expend as much energy to keep from working and to getting as much money as they possible can from taxpayers as they would if they actually GOT A JOB! But now there are no jobs, so that respite is denied us. In Arizona, if you want food stamps and you are able bodied, you have to perform community service, or no dice. I can't wait for the mandatory drug testing to go along with that!!.
We already have enough ginormous agencies that screw things up beyond all recognition. We DO NOT need another one! And while everyone talks about the empty homes like they are widjits that need to be utilizied, try to remember that some of them were the culmination of a lifetime's work for someone. I am 60 years old and my home is in foreclosure and has been for months, not because I got a sweet mortgage I couldn't afford, but because I got a husband who didn't want to be a grownup anymore, and ran away from home.
© 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
