Just a Thought, Mr. Obama

Hello, Mr. Obama. Congratulations on the election. I know you've been busy picking your staff and that's probably why you haven't responded to my post yet, dated November 5, 2008. And I know you have the middle class and the lower class people to respond to first; as you have said many times, they need are the most important groups to you and your party. But don't worry, we in the UPPER CLASS are patient and understand the difficulties of your new position.







If I may, I have another thought you may be interested in exploring. The subject involves the housing crisis and the future uses of the Federal stimulus packages. I do not wish to debate who started this mess in the housing crisis as I feel we may come to very different conclusions. Let's just say we are both in this together now and I'd like to propose one solution to the problem.







It seems to this blogger that we need to first correct one of the original problems of the housing crisis. Anyone who paid attention to their Economic teacher in high school has an understanding of supply and demand and how that effects the prices of homes, and as you know, we have a glut of homes sitting on the market. There are so many reasons why people are not in the mood to buy right now that without your (Federal) help, we are just not going to get the ball rolling, if you see what I mean.





The banks and the Federal government has done a decent job with some foreclosures recently by altering existing mortgages and that has cost a lot of money, but that's money well spent. This alone won't stop the spiraling drop in housing prices so I ask for you to consider the proposal that is going before Congress now that has been presented by this nation's builders.





The proposal is called "Fix Housing First" and basically for any house bought over the next year a tax credit of up to $22,000 would be given to the new homeowner. Also, there is an interest rate buy down on new regular 30-year fixed mortgages to 2.99% for the houses purchased through June 30, 2009. People smarter than me can give you the details of this proposal and I would even go so far as to suggest doing this Federal assistance prior to assisting the auto industries and providing money for infrastructure.



My favorite quote of the day was listed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, by Chief Executive at Toll Brothers Inc., Robert Toll, when he said, "We certainly need new tunnels and bridges, but they will be bridges to nowhere if they lead to places where there are empty homes".



I look forward to your comments on my post and hope you are resting up prior to your big inauguration celebration.