Take-aways from our recent California Association of Realtors Mid-winter meetings.
From NAR President-elect Moe Veissi -
Six of the past eight recessions have ended due to increasing strength in the housing market. The other two were due to wars. That seems like an easy choice. We need to get behind housing. This battle against housing is counterproductive and the attack on the mortgage interest deduction is an attack on one of the basic foundations of the American Dream.
Similarly we should seek to preserve the basics of the GSE's.They can certainly be improved upon but their services are vital to home buyers. They provide a foundation and critical financial instruments that allow many people to buy homes that otherwise would not be able to. Keep in mind that during the height of the meltdown, Fannie and Freddie had take-back rates of about 3 1/2% while at the same time banks like B of A and Wells were taking back 15% to 18%.
You hear people today who don't know the history, who don't know any better - oh, Canada doesn't have a 30 year fixed mortgage and their housing market is great. Oh, Europe doesn't have a Fannie/Freddie and their market is great. The fact is, their markets don't compare with ours. Never have. Nobody does it like us. These other countries are trying to figure out how to do it like we do and we're trying to figure out how to kill our system and adopt the systems others are trying to get rid of. So why would we try to emulate markets with which we have nothing in common? Why would we destroy 100 years of success to become more like an inferior market? It just doesn't make sense.
These are not short term problems we are dealing with and they will keep rearing their heads. We have saddled ourselves with tremendous debt so attacks on basic and short term sources of tax revenue will be ongoing. Don't believe them when they tell you - oh, we aren't going to take it all away. Just this little bit. Yeah, just that little bit this time. Then a little more, then a little more, you know how that works.
Realtors just don't realize the power we have in our communities and our country. But we've got to stand up and be counted if we want to be heard. We need to present Congress with 1/2 million Realtor calls on issues instead of 100,000. When we can consistently deliver 1/2 million member voices or more to our Congressional leaders, they will know we mean business.
(note: I heard from Moe in three different meetings so this is kind of a synopsis of his commentary. If there are errors in translation or content, the error is mine, not Moe's. He's gonna be a terrific President for us next year - not that Ron is any kind of slouch this year.)
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