Midday Friday, I was informed that an expected closing had fallen. One of my associates, the listing agent, received a call from the buyer’s agent with the very sad news that the buyer had been laid off from his job this morning, an hour after his wife had completed the final walk through for the scheduled 1:00 P.M. closing. Fallen sales are always disappointing, particularly so in the present economic climate, but this one got me to thinking about the effects of this one fallen sale.

Consider that the buyer got of bed today with high hopes, enjoying the adrenalin rush that comes from the anticipation of securing a new home. He had a job as he started the day, and I am sure that he and his wife were happy and pleased with how life was treating them. For those two unfortunate people, their day did not end anything like it started. In a few short hours they lost the security of income, the security of shelter, and the security of relevance.

It gets worse. The seller had made plans to move to a short term rental. The seller had to unwind the lease on his quarters, recover his deposit, and cancel the movers. The movers lost the income associated with moving the seller to new quarters. The owner of the rental property has to find a new tenant. The buyers lender had to cancel a mortgage loan, loosing not only the income (lenders have bills too), but the time devoted to the effort. The cost of the appraisal, inspections, title insurance commitment, and other miscellaneous fees suddenly had no value. Time spent by all the parties, lenders, title insurance employees, the Realtors (they also have bills to pay), and who knows who else, produced no benefit. The seller has to again expose his property to a less than stellar market and find a new buyer. The buyer has to find employment, stabilize his life, and hopefully try again to buy a home in the future. I could go on with the ripple effects, but you get the picture.

When we are talking about statistics, it just isn’t very personal. When some economists are speaking about the overdue need for a correction, I can only assume they are speaking with tenured professorships in hand, because when you are watching the correction happen to people you know, it gets your attention. And it is happening often, to many nice people, all over the country. The finger pointing and postmortem discussions are important, and necessary, as we restructure the economy to avoid this sort of meltdown in the future. I suspect, however, that most of us get it by now. Let's get started on the recovery.

Memo to the President –elect and the sitting President: Get together. Get on the same page, or at least in the same hymnal, about a plan. The citizens of the United States are facing the crises of a lifetime, and deserve the best from both of you . Right now. Mr. Obama, the great orator, needs to offer definitive assurance to the entire country that there is a plan, a direction, a unified agreement as to what must be done to restore confidence in ourselves. It might be a nice touch if Obama and Bush could share a podium and speak with one voice. If things don't get better very soon, it is just possible that Mr. Obama may inherit an economy that won't have any money to tax. While it is true that we can only have one President at a time, nowhere is it written that we cannot have two leaders at the same time. Gentlemen, get the housing market functional again. There is no end of plans offered to make that market viable, just pick one.

Then, when we are feeling better about our prospects, and only then, should we begin the debate about how to fix all of the other things that ail us.