Will Gov’t Regulation Kill The Housing Market — Again?

Investors Business Daily ^ | 5/19/2016 | Editorial

[expat_panama]

Housing: Seemingly everyone applauds the recent surge in home prices as a positive sign for the economy. But, in fact, it isn’t. If anything, it’s a sign the federal government still hasn’t learned its lesson about excessive regulation.

While prices for homes have surged in recent years, they’ve done so thanks mainly to federal regulations put in place after the financial crisis. Low interest rates engineered by the Fed to stimulate the economy have fueled a surge in demand, driving prices up sharply. And federal regulations continue to require mortgage lenders to make risky home loans based on race and ethnicity, not creditworthiness — just as they did in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac market bubble of 2006...

...homeownership rate plunged to just above 63% in the first quarter of this year...

...homebuilders, wary of the growing layers of regulation and the possibility of another market crash, just aren’t building homes...

...Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last October implemented a new Dodd-Frank rule that requires extensive new “compliance” forms and waiting periods for each mortgage deal...

...“The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act confuses endless red tape for effective reform...

...the innocuous title, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.” In fact, says Sen. Lee, this innocent sounding rule is nothing less than an attempt by the Obama administration to put in place a national zoning board with control...

...they will seize control of local zoning decisions — choosing what should be built, where, and who should pay for it...

...bad law that has had awful consequences. So let us repeat: It’s time to end this nation’s failed experiment with top-down government control of housing, and let markets once again do the job that they do best. If not, we may soon face a housing-related financial crisis worse than the last one.

[Tupelo]

Of course, Dodd and Franks were two leading causes of the housing meltdown with their heavy handed leaning on mortgage banks to write mortgages for the unqualified and then the very unqualified in the name of “fairness”.
Then in 2010 in the Obama / Democrat euphoria in holding all three branches of government, including both houses of congress, they codified DODD - FRANKS. A recipe for disaster. But they really were just following the longstanding Federal Government motto:

“If it aun’t broke, we will fix it until it is”

[expat_panama]

It's Friday and everything's still there even if we aren't getting anywhere!  

Gold and silver still go for $1,257.65 and $16.60 and stocks continue stuck down where we've been for a couple weeks.  Futures traders see both stocks and metals off more right now but that's what they've been seeing for quite a while...  Existing Home Sales comes out in a couple hours.  Meanwhile:

Reverse of Progress: Austin & the Uber Economy - Jared Meyer, U.S. News
Tax/Investment Fixes Key to Small Business Success - Ray Keating, RCM
Wall Street Seems Like a Mel Brooks Film Lately - Doug Kass, RealMoney
George Gilder Writes Wall Street a Break-up Letter - Jerry Bowyer, Forbes
Fed Has Something to Prove to Complacent Investors - Ye Xie, Bloomberg
Economic Wisdom of Chauncey Gardiner - Caroline Baum, MarketWatch
Trump's Run Has Been Bonanza For Bank Account - Shawn Tully, Fortune

[expat_panama]

Dodd and Franks were two leading causes of the housing meltdown...

What I get is that Dodd/Frank was passed in 2010 and it was supposed to fix what was broke w/ the housing crash of 2009 --and ended up making things worse.  The real cause (imho) were 'equal' lending laws plus FannyMae nonsense....

[Flick Lives]

Seemingly everyone applauds the recent surge in home prices as a positive sign for the economy.

What consumer product would be applauded for an ever increasing price? Long ago, houses were just a place to live. Somewhere in the recent past, things were distorted and the idea of a house as an "investment" came into being; that you would buy it for X and sell it for X+. Of course this thinking naturally drives the price higher and higher until, unexpectedly, *pop* goes the price.

[M Kehoe]

Good morning and thanks for the reading material.

If Uber purchased one of those three taxi companies, they would have one of the permits.

Then the Austin city council could go suck swamp water.

5.56mm

[expat_panama]

Austin city council could go...

Yeah that one caught my eye too.  I got a lot of kin that are from Austin and it sure seems more and more these days that the City of Austin is truly becoming a great place to be from.

[expat_panama]

the idea of a house as an "investment"

When ever I hear someone say that that they consider their home their biggest investment, it tells me that they paid too much for their home and now they have no savings for the future.

[WashingtonSource]

Put me on your list

[Texas resident]

Dodd/Frank’s purpose was to get more federal control over the lending institutions (banks) and the housing industry.

[rdl6989]