Federal Meddling in Housing Market Spells Disaster

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In one of the best written articles on the housing market problems and how the Federal Governments intervention could make it worst has now been written by J.D. Foster. If you have a few minutes please read it. It is one of the most succinct articles on how much damage the meddling of our government can do to the housing market.

Stop the housing bailout before it undoes all of us – Federal plan could unravel effective private efforts 

I tried to excerpt the best part of the editorial but it is such a solid piece that I can not do it justice by pulling one part of it.

Borrowers by the millions are falling behind on their mortgages. The problems are most severe in a few states. Some, such as Nevada, California and Florida, enjoyed a huge, multiyear speculative bubble that’s now popped in spectacular fashion. Others, such as Ohio and Michigan, are seeing home prices decline because of more fundamental weaknesses in their economies, in some cases significantly exacerbated by extraordinarily foolish state fiscal policies. Yet just about every state is experiencing a housing problem: unusual numbers of borrowers who are delinquent or soon will be, home prices falling a little or a lot and contraction in construction.
Fortunately, the mortgage industry isn’t waiting for Congress to get its act together. Spurred on by the Treasury Department through a program called Hope Now, the industry — supported by services, counselors and community non-profit organizations — is actively seeking creditworthy borrowers who are or are likely to get into financial trouble. Why? To find a way to rework the mortgage or the payment schedule so the borrower can stay in the home.
Since last summer, the industry has successfully reworked more than a million mortgages, and is reworking hundreds of thousands more every month. via the Houston Chronicle.