1/13/2012 US Housing Update 

Despite the fact that the government has thrown huge sums of cash at the housing market, home foreclosures continued to surge in 2011.  Total United States foreclosures for calendar year 2011 is approximately 2.7 million!  Unfortunately (or fortunately if you are a going to be buying a home) 2012 is expected to be, by many experts, just as bad or worse than 2011.

The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at near record lows for many years now and government agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae continue to use taxpayer-backed money to finance home buyers, the housing market is still stagnant and falling in most areas of the USA.  Now Freddie and Fannie are losing so much money that there is talk of another taxpayer funded bailout.  That's right folks.  Our tax dollars are taken to help the government agencies loan people money for homes, then when the homebuyer loses their job and can't pay the mortgage, they take for public funds to bail-out the government agencies!  Fannie and Freddie still manage to hand-out bonuses to the executives and even pay politicians such as Newt Gingrich 1.6 million dollars for "advice".

The Realtors reportedly continue to lobby the politicians to keep government aid pouring into the housing market yet people that cannot afford a home, and are smart enough not to jump in over there heads on a home that is too expensive, have to sit and wait for home prices to fall further.

 If the government would just step-aside and let home prices fall then buyers would actually be able to afford their mortgages and will have a greater likelihood of not missing their mortgage payments and getting foreclosed.  Instead, the government is trying to prop-up the market, trying to keep home prices from falling, and wasting tens of millions if not trillions in the process.  Meanwhile the US deficit sits over 15 trillion dollars that the taxpayers will be on the hook for in the future.

Too bad no politicians, except for maybe Ron Paul, are bold enough to actually admit the truth.