[vimeo id=”96141402″ width=”625″ height=”352″]
Examining the housing market’s dependence on government financing
As a reverse mortgage professional have you ever pondered the forces behind our housing market? What makes the lending world keep running? What natural or artificial forces are at play that influence home prices and affordability? Mortgage Banker’s Association President & CEO and former FHA Commissioner David Stevens opined that the real estate finance is stuck in the same ‘sick system’ as it was prior to the 2008 housing collapse. Such a comment should raise the question, is our economic and housing recovery the result of natural market forces or artificial government intervention? First is the question of the role that government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play. “It is four years later and the government isn’t still just the backbone, but has become the entire central nevus system of the…
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2 Comments
SICK SICK SICK
I am certainly no expert on the mortgage industry; however, it seems those who warned that any artificial support for housing values through government (such as FHA/HUD/Ginnie Mae) and government sponsored enterprises would have more of an overall negative impact than positive to the economy, were more right than wrong. Immediately following the so called burst of the home value bubble they warned that such support would result in temporary strength to the housing and building industries but long-term lead to a stunted recovery in both of those industries which in turn would significantly slow down any overall economic recovery.
The real question to be asked is whether Mr. Stevens as one of the government housing leaders during the early days of the so called economic recovery is the right spokesperson on this topic. He never spoke up then about these concerns and it is only as the head of the MBA have we heard such arguments from him.