Milestones
By Miles H. Barber

Real estate has always been one of the primary bastions of our economy and the soggy real estate market is why our economy sucks.

The Dodd-Frank banking/mortgage Bill has crippled this industry with onerous and ludicrous regulations. This bill is as damaging as the free for all mortgage mess and meltdown of four years ago.

When you tie the hands of the economic engine that drives America we can only expect hogtied results.

One seventh of our economic GDP has historically centered on the real estate industry, providing jobs for real estate agents, appraisers, mortgage brokers, property inspectors and numerous primary and ancillary services such as contractors, developers, construction workers, insurance agents and maintenance people.

If you have not experienced the frustration of refinancing your home at the lowest interest rates in history, you are missing an unbelievable opportunity and most likely one of the most trying experiences of your adult life.

It is one thing to fix a problem. However, over fixing a problem only creates additional problems.

Multiple layers of government requirements and regulations in Dodd-Frank have not only made refinancing your home a challenge, it has become virtually impossible for self employed or retired people to refinance or purchase a home, (that by itself is insane). An example of this is a 70 year old lady with $800,000 in cash in the bank and she does not qualify to refinance the $170,000 mortgage on her million dollar home.

The big buzz word in a lot of circles is “jobs” and to create jobs in real estate there must be a flow of capital for risk takers like home buyers and home builders.

Government cannot put a chokehold on the availability and flow of capital and expect jobs to be created.

The notion that more government jobs are the answer to reviving the sluggish economy is faulty thinking. Government jobs are paid from taxpayer revenues. Taxpayer revenues are declining because less people are working and government has not reduced spending.

Naturally, government looks to high earning taxpayers to pay more taxes. Again, this is faulty thinking. Shifting the responsibility of over spending to the wealthy is not a cure, it is a fix. This fix takes additional capital out of the hands of job creators and places in the hands of government spenders.

Penalizing the wealthy for being successful at creating products, services and jobs sends the wrong message to Americans.

As Emerson said, “It is the first duty of every man not to be poor.”

This is not about blame, this is about responsibility. Our government’s spending habits are irresponsible.

Returning to a balanced formula for home purchases and refinance that worked for 60 years would not be a step backward it would be a major leap forward.

It would immediately begin to soften the foreclosure drag on the housing market, create new jobs, restore old jobs and increase demand for housing.

Miles Barber can be reached at Scweekly2011@yahoo.com