U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson comments on current housing correction

There just is not any good news for those of us in the real estate industry, on any facet, these days.

Last Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gave a sobering speech at the Georgetown University Law Center. His gravest point was that the decline in the housing market poses "the most significant current risk to our economy."

He went on to say that the housing correction is not turning around as quickly as it previously may have appeared, and "it now looks like it will continue to adversely impact our economy, our capital markets, and many homeowners for some time yet."

It is not only the subprime borrowers having trouble paying their mortgages, he explained, by many other homeowners are having problems as the prime mortgage rates also increase.

Mr. Paulson has come out in favor of developing a uniform national licensing and monitoring system for mortgage brokers to alleviate future meltdowns. He is skeptical of legislative efforts to complete ban such practices as prepayment penalties. He believes that each homeowner's case has to be judged appropriately.

He also warns about too much government intervention to bail out lenders or property speculators, as such actions tend to lead to repeat offenders, rather than cleaning up the problem. He is encouraging lenders to work with their customers that are in arrears and attempt to rework their loans to an affordable level.

And, I say, if Michigan survived the 1980's, we will come back from this, also!
And, so, 'til next time, it's all good!