The housing market is failing, not recovering
December 15, 2009 by admin
Filed under Mortgage Mess
At the risk of overdoing the Peter Schiff thing today, I thought he summed up the problems of the housing market so succinctly in today’s Asia times that I had to post it:
[W]hile it is true that home prices have stopped falling, this represents failure, not victory. True success would be a drop in home prices to a level that potential homebuyers could actually afford. Instead, we have maintained artificially high prices with tax credits, subsidized mortgage rates, low down payments, and foreclosure relief.
With 96% of new mortgages now insured by federal agencies, market forces have been completely removed from the housing equation. With so many government programs specifically designed to maintain artificially high home prices, devastating long-term consequences for our economy are inevitable.
Success and victory are inevitable. The question is, at what cost?
