What Recently Happened In Washington DC

Friday, January 13th, 2012 | Uncategorized

Tuesday, January 10, 2012, I had the opportunity to join the DPC lobbyist and other members of the Distressed Properties Coalition and brief the staff members of four separate Republican members of the Congressional House Financial Services Subcommittee. Each briefing focused on two points.
The first point that we raised in each briefing had to do with the recent development of arbitrary short-sale restrictions presented either in the form of Short Sale Affidavits or stipulations in Short Sale Approval letters that were emanating from the GSE’s, particularly from Freddie Mac. We touched upon the fundamental questions regarding the overall legality of these requirements, as well as the propriety of them, to wit, housing policy being created by a failed institution that is dependent upon government assistance that believes it still has the right to dictate housing policy and usurp that authority from the Congress.
The second point that we briefed each office on had to do with provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that make seller financing even more challenging than had been established through the Safe Act.
In each instance, the representative for each member of Congress was very receptive to our ideas and understood our position. In fact, one of them said, “You mean to tell me that if my grandmother wants to try to sell, via owner financing, the farm she just inherited from my granddad, she won’t be able to do it without complying with all of these extra rules and regulations?” Another staff member inquired as to how the GSE actions were going to impact the rental market and affect the strong rental market that was going on in his Representative’s Congressional district. A third staff member quickly acknowledged that the fact that because short sales were no longer going through, it was creating an even bigger log jam of foreclosures, placing an even greater burden on HOA’s and COA’s in her Representative’s district.
The message that we presented is one asking for less regulation coming from failed institutions that have demonstrated a track record of squandering billions of taxpayer dollars and have been charged with the deliberate misleading of the public and Congress regarding the extent of their financial holdings. We are advocating that these defacto regulations are not only illegal, crippling the economy, and killing jobs, but they are also delaying and stifling any type of housing recovery that could begin if the free market system was allowed to adequately and completely address, without restraint and restrictions, the distressed property environment.
We also pointed out the inherent contradictions in the defacto GSE short-sale regulations, as their efforts to limit flipping were directly contrary to the recently re-extended FHA waiver of the anti-flipping rule.
All of the above points were well-articulated by members of the DPC which included representatives from Clear Title America and Noteworthy Publications.

3 Comments to What Recently Happened In Washington DC

koko kelejian
January 13, 2012

Excellent info Jeff. Glad we have great representation where it counts. Now we hope we can get some traction on this movement and actually see some results from congress.

Sergio DeCesare
January 14, 2012

all in all, it sounds positive and maybe, just maybe, we can get some sensiblity back into this market.

Nathan Turner
January 17, 2012

Excellent work Jeff. Thank you for your efforts and let us all know what we can do to help!

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