Utahns Split On Renting vs. Buying In Today's Economy

Do we rent or do we buy? That is the question some Utahns are contemplating in today's shaky economy. Analysts say a growing number of Americans are renting rather than buying a home.

Resident Ron Thorpe and his wife bought their home in Tooele 10 years ago. He's even contemplated buying another house but doesn't want to pay two mortgages. He says now is the time to seize the home buying opportunity because of the state of the economy.

"Interest rates are at their record low," says Thorpe. "Housing prices have come down and you always need a home to live in."
Other Utahns aren't so sure about that. Rose Park resident Klarissa Mesi says she prefers to rent because it saves her money.

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How Long Does Foreclosure Take?

Since the housing market fell apart, the time people spend in foreclosure has gone way up.
As the chart below shows, "judicial foreclosures" — those in states where foreclosures go through the courts — now take an average of 271 days, or about nine months.
Judicial foreclosures are the ones at the center of the "robo-signer" foreclosure mess. So as banks change their practices in response to the scandal, we may see the time to foreclosure rise even more in those states.

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Watchdog Panel to Grill Treasury on Foreclosure Robo-Signings

A Treasury official will be on the hot seat tomorrow as a Congressional watchdog group, known largely for its scathing assessments of the federal bank bailout, will hold the first public hearing to tackle the foreclosure robo-signings scandal.
Tomorrow's hearing, by the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, was originally to focus on the government's foreclosure mitigation programs, including the Home Affordable Modification Program. 

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FHA Loans: Getting an FHA Loan After Foreclosure

With the recent news of the record amount of foreclosures during the month of September, it is obvious to wonder who will be able to purchase a home in the future. Losing a home to foreclosure is stressful and for many it is the end of the emotional road of homeownership. In reality, foreclosures have been happening all along, but not at the high rate as what has happened over the past few years. Many people who went through this process years ago are now ready to purchase a home again due to low home prices. Getting an FHA loan after foreclosure is possible and happens everyday.

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Apartments Are A Good Investment For Some

The property in Fort Lauderdale was originally valued at $285,000. Clint Gordon, a private investor in multifamily properties, offered the bank $50,000, and within 10 days, had closed the deal. A few days later, he began renting it for $15,000 a year.

"Anybody who's getting into this business now, you get a whole lot of return if you're paying cash for properties," he says. "You're just buying them so cheap."

Prices for apartment buildings are "incredible" in Indianapolis, as well, says Barb Getty, who owns 27 apartment properties in the downtown area. "You can start small like I did; 20% of 40 thousand bucks isn't a lot of money."

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Long Road To A Short Sale: Struggling Homeowners Turn To Lenders For Last-Chance Option

The house that Anna Bogaard-Hazen and her husband, Barry Hazen, bought on a cul-de-sac in Eldorado in 2005 had everything on their list of amenities — views, privacy, a pretty front porch.

In fact, when they first saw it, "Our jaws just dropped," she recalled.

Because others were bidding on the property, the couple paid the owners their asking price of $389,000 for the 1,800-square-foot house.

When they refinanced in 2007, the appraised value of the property had jumped to $460,000 and they thought, "Oh boy, we made a great investment. We were thrilled," Bogaard-Hazen said.

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Buying Bank Owned REO Properties

Buying bank owned homes or condominiums is a great way to make a make deal of money in today’s real estate market conditions IF you have cash. Cash, Proof of funds letter, Education and Training are the key elements new investors are lacking. These three factors are important before any inexperienced real estate investor or buyer plunge into the real estate world.

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Is There a New 3.8% Tax on House Sales?

We have received many questions about a possible 3.8% tax which will be put on home sales beginning in 2013. We want to do our best to clarify this situation for everyone. We are not accountants and give you this information just as a simple answer to the misconception. Understand that, when it comes to IRS regulations, you should check with your accountant for the most accurate and up-to-date information. 

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Top Five Reasons To Purchase A Home Now

Buyers still waiting for home prices to scrape rock bottom (hint: they will never return to1953 levels) or interest rates to hit zero (I know, it feels like they're headed there) might want to consider that conditions for buying a home are better today than at any time in recent memory.

The following are five reasons to consider a home purchase now:

1. Bargains are abundant, and buyers hold the cards. Home prices have dropped 30% since the peak, and in some states, such as Arizona and Florida, we're looking at the steepest price drops in recent history. The median price nationally for an existing home was $178,600 in August, according to the National Association of Realtors. With the expiration of the federal tax credits for home purchases, competition for low-cost homes has eased considerably.

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3 Signs the Mortgage Market Has Hit Bottom

After more than two years of misery in the housing market, the worst may finally be over.

A handful of recent developments in the mortgage market all point to an easing of lending standards, which have been onerously high since 2008. Private lenders and the federal government have reinvigorated the jumbo mortgage market, making bigger loans more available to more borrowers. And in general, would-be homeowners can now qualify for a loan with a lower credit score and make a smaller down payment – in some cases, as low as 5%. Those moves, taken together, mean that more borrowers have access to mortgages, a necessary precondition for housing to rebound.

“When you see those moves on the upswing, it gives you a hint of what’s coming later on,” says Chip Cummings, president of Northwind Financial, a consulting company for mortgage and realtor firms.

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How to Negotiate When Buying a Home

The dream of home ownership is one that plagues many adults. Paying into a rental, month after month, may be cheaper in the short term, but over the long haul you can begin to feel like you’re simply flushing money down the toilet that could be going towards an investment in your future. But buying a home is no easy feat. Somewhere between the home you want and the loan you can get is a house that is right for you (or at least for right now), and it can be very tricky to navigate the shark-infested waters of the housing market. First, there are the previous owners, who no doubt want to get as much value from their home as possible. Then there are real estate agents, who may tell you just about anything in order to get a commission (except for Martin Vaughn). And of course, you will have to deal with loan agents, who must look out for the best interest of their lending institution (not to mention whatever kind of bonus they’ll be getting). In short, it pays to know what you’re up against and actively pursue finding out everything you can before you enter negotiations.

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How NOT To Negotiate an REO Property

This week, I’m going to depart from my usual attempt to be informative and insightful, and instead use this space to share an interesting email exchange I had with a particular non-professional REO listing agent (and yes, I ended up taking a very non-professional tact as well). Actually, I think this post will be informative and insightful, but only as an example of what you probably shouldn’t do as a listing agent or an investor/buyer.

To set the stage, we made an offer on an REO last week. Before submitting the offer, my wife (my agent) called the listing agent to verify that the property was still available. He told us that the property had received multiple offers and that we should submit our “highest and best” offer to the seller.

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Is Vanilla Ice The Next Donald Trump?

Why Government Shouldn't Block Home Foreclosures

If one word best summarizes the current housing market, "foreclosure" would be it. Despite record-low interest rates, American homeowners are losing their properties with greater frequency than at any time since the Great Depression. Yet banks and other financial institutions, until very recently on track to seize 1.2 million homes by the end of this year, are facing growing pressure to impose "voluntary" nationwide moratorium on foreclosure repossessions and sales. If they don't do the job themselves, say critics, government should do it. Several major lenders in fact have ceased property seizures in the wake of widespread revelations of foreclosures lacking proper documentation. The calls for action are understandable. Yet a moratorium, rather than restore integrity to our financial system, would further imperil it.

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Why Your First Home Shouldn't Be Your Dream Home

Since 2000 homeownership rates in the U.S. have hovered around 66% to 67% of the population. In 1900 less than half of Americans owned their own homes. The biggest surge in home buying came after World War II, when many young families were encouraged to buy "starter homes."

Attitudes about how to buy a home have fluctuated as much as interest rates during the decades since World War II, and eventually many first-time home buyers were encouraged to "buy big" in order to stretch their budgets as much as possible, and to buy the homes they wanted to live in forever. Given the high level of foreclosures and the loss of value in many homes, today's buyers are more wary of taking on homes they cannot afford, but many are still tempted to make their first home purchases their dream homes rather than their starter homes.

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NY Fed, 8 Firms Threaten BofA Over Mortgage Securities

The New York Federal Reserve Bank is part of a consortium of eight large institutional investment firms that is demanding that Bank of America repurchase loans included in mortgage securities.

Bloomberg reported earlier Tuesday that the New York Fed had joined with the Pacific Investment Management Company, better known as Pimco, and investment management firm BlackRock in an attempt to force BofA to buy back $47 billion in mortgage bonds.

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Michael Jackson’s Kids Want to Buy Neverland Again

Prince Michael and Paris has many wonderful memories with their father at Neverland. They also intend to buy again that super luxury homes.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Monday, Prince and Paris agreed to buy the house when they were grown. Incidentally, they will get all the legacy of Michael when they were aged 21 years.

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Slumping Resort Real Estate Means Bargains For Rich

America’s “Great Recession” has provided a great lesson for resort real estate markets.
Economic slowdowns hit even the wealthy, and this latest one has dealt a serious blow to markets in places such as Aspen, Vail and Telluride, where home prices often are measured in millions of dollars.
Last year was a year to remember, or possibly better off to forget, as transactions and dollar volumes in many resort areas continued a sharp decline also experienced in 2008.

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U.S. Trying To Assess Foreclosure Crisis Scope - FDIC

U.S. financial regulators are trying to gauge the scope of improper processing of foreclosures while banks need to assess their level of risk exposure, banking regulator Sheila Bair said on Sunday.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair said in an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" that the problems with processing foreclosures appeared to be an industry-wide practice, at least with larger loan servicers.

"I think this is really a symptom of size. It's very unfortunate," she said. "So in our backup supervisory capacity we are working with our regulatory colleagues. I think it is necessary for the regulators to go in and verify."

Last week, attorneys general from all 50 states said they were looking at allegations some banks did not properly review files or submitted false statements to evict delinquent borrowers from their homes. They are investigating accusations that lenders and banks employed "robo-signers" to sign hundreds of affidavits each day without vetting all the information.

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Banks Restart Foreclosures

Two major lenders at the center of the foreclosure crisis took steps Monday to put the mess behind them by restarting home seizures that were frozen by documentation concerns.

Bank of America Corp. reopened more than 100,000 foreclosure actions, declaring that it had found no significant problems in its procedures for seizing homes. GMAC Mortgage, a lender and loan servicer, said that it also is pushing ahead with an unspecified number of foreclosures that came under intense pressure.

Monday's moves are part of a growing counterattack by lenders scrambling to stem a financial and political threat over allegations that certain employees signed hundreds of documents a day without carefully reviewing their contents when foreclosing on homes.

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Rehabbed Home Has Tales To Tell

Mary Jo Willmore admits that at first, she and her husband, Bradford, didn't really know what to expect from the Telegraph Hill home at 31 Alta St. when they first saw a sketch of the probate home in a magazine a decade ago.


"You're always a little scared when you see just a sketch of a home, because that usually means there's something wrong with it," she said.


The home, which is believed to have been built in the mid-19th century and survived the 1906 earthquake, did have a few issues. The bricks on its exterior needed repair, its decks were tattered and the interior was barely livable.


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Mortgage Damage Spreads

The unfolding foreclosure-processing debacle is causing bank stocks to slide and putting millions of delinquent borrowers in limbo.

But how disruptive the crisis ultimately becomes—for homeowners, the housing market and the broader economy—depends on how quickly a number of technical problems and legal challenges are resolved in the months ahead.

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Four Ways The Foreclosure Mess Could Be Used To Help Homeowners

If you didn't think the gods of financial crises had a sense of humor, consider that the latest economic threat is that foreclosures have largely stopped. What's next? Our (401)ks are looking too full?
Although the potential for chaos in the housing market and on bank balance sheets is rightly feared, there's an opportunity here, too. Foreclosures have paused. There's renewed recognition that the business practices behind the housing bubble were a mixture of insane and fraudulent. The banks will probably need some government help again, even if it's just regulatory forbearance. The market is preparing for the possibility of new policies - and we should have some, but not just for the banks. For the homeowners, too.

Our response to the financial crisis had three parts: The bank and auto bailouts, the stimulus, and the efforts to help homeowners facing foreclosure. The bailouts worked pretty well. The stimulus was much too small, but at least did what it said it was going to do. The help for homeowners, however, has been a disaster.

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Foreclosure Anger Is Now Hitting Election Campaign

Three weeks before the election, anger over tainted home foreclosure documents is bursting into the battle for control of Congress, especially in hard-hit states such as Nevada and Florida. Democrats in tight races in the worst housing markets are pressing for a national moratorium, putting a reluctant White House on the spot.

Leading the call for a nationwide time-out on kicking people out of their homes is Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is locked in a neck-and-neck re-election contest with tea party-endorsed Sharron Angle in Nevada, which has the highest foreclose rate in the country. Reid is decrying "reports of shoddy and defective affidavit preparation."

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Builder Turns 'Trash' Into Custom Homes

A Texas homebuilder is turning trash to treasure by converting landfill items into houses for single mothers, artists and low-income families. License plate roofs, picture frame ceilings and wine cork floors are just some of the features in these custom-built homes.


"I always suspected that one could build a house out of whatever went into a landfill," said builder Dan Pillips.

He has turned his hunch into a business. Phillips and his retired art teacher wife Marsha pour their creative energy into their construction company, Phoenix Commotion.

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Most Expensive ZIP codes In The US

Los Angeles has always been home to some of the world's most expensive real estate. But forget Beverly Hills, 90210: The new hot spot for multimillion-dollar mansions is Duarte, 91008.

Duarte, Calif., home to the 91008 ZIP code, is a small suburb northeast of downtown LA, near the Los Angeles national forest. The median cost of a house in this tony town is a whopping $4,276,462, making it the most expensive housing market in the country. It ranks No. 1 on Forbes' annual ranking of America's Most Expensive ZIP Codes.

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Despite Freezes, Foreclosures March On In Utah And Beyond

For most Americans at risk of losing their homes —especially those in Utah — the brutal business of foreclosure goes on.

Bank of America halted foreclosures across the country to address banks’ use of flawed foreclosure paperwork, but three other banks did so only in 23 states where judges have to review foreclosures— and Utah wasn’t one of them. And other banks holding millions of mortgages have not suspended any foreclosures.

As with all real estate matters, location is everything. So what does the industry’s moratorium mean for states such as Utah, Arizona, California and Nevada that typically have no judicial review of foreclosure cases (except when homeowners sue a bank)?

For now, “It’s probably going to have little — if any — effect in Utah,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac cq , a company that tracks foreclosures nationally.

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Israel Unlikely Champ In Global Real Estate

Israel, despite perennial fears of war, has emerged as one of the hottest - and least likely - property markets in the world: Since real estate collapsed around the globe in 2008, at least one industry watchdog lists it as the fastest-rising property market on earth.
But with global economic meltdown - and the subprime mortgage fiasco that precipitated it - still fresh in people's minds, officials are stepping up efforts to rein in its overheated property sector. The fear is that a property bubble could shake confidence in an economy that withstood the worst of the world's financial crisis.

Bank Foreclosure Fiasco: What It Means To The Housing Market

In the last two weeks the housing market has been shaken by the fiasco that has managed to infect the entire nation. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Ally Financial have all imposed moratoriums on their foreclosures in at least 23 states, and BOA has issued an edict to stop the foreclosure processes in all 50 states. This has collected the attention of congressional leaders, and the President. Leaders have requested investigations, asked loan servicing companies to stop filings, and the President even vetoed a bill easing the process in courts, a bill of his conception.

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Pointless Bank Requests Slow The Short Sale Procedure

Today’s installment is going to bring out some complaining. Nevertheless, by the end of the episode, we will bring this chat full circle with some information on how to overcome the problems.

Recently, we have been getting an increased amount of requests from lender workers for documents that is totally needless to the transaction. For example, we have a short sale package at B of A, accepted several months ago. Yet, the buyer walked away, so we obtained a new buyer at the identical offer price. Because the folder has a new negotiator assigned to it, the package did not get approved.

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Foreclosure Delays May Cost U.S. Banks Up to $6 Billion, FBR's Miller Says

Faulty foreclosures may cost U.S. lenders $2 billion for every month that home seizures are delayed and the tab could reach $6 billion, according to Paul Miller, the bank analyst at FBR Capital Markets.

Investigations of how banks are seizing homes may prolong foreclosures by as much as three months, at a rough cost of $1,000 per month for each property in the pipeline, Miller, a former bank examiner, said in an interview today. The biggest firms likely need to add staff to comb through the files, costing them each $1 million a year, he said.

“The real true cost is not the expenses, it’s the drag in the foreclosure system,” Miller said.

Attorneys general, consumer groups and some lawmakers have pressed mortgage firms to follow Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, which last week suspended all foreclosures to check whether faulty documents were used to confiscate homes. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit froze seizures or evictions in 23 states.

Click here to Read: Foreclosure Delays May Cost U.S. Banks Up to $6 Billion, FBR's Miller Says...

Beverly Hills Mansion Featured In 'The Godfather' On The Market For $95 Million

For $95 million, you can own the Beverly Hills mansion where scenes from The Godfather were filmed, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The property’s owner, attorney and investor Leonard M. Ross, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, says The Journal.

The 50,000-plus-square-foot home, called Beverly Estate, was used for the famous horse head scene in the iconic film.

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GMAC Will Review Foreclosures in All 50 States

GMAC Mortgage will review its foreclosure procedures in all 50 states, broadening an initial review that began about two months ago. The move follows Bank of America's decision to do the same.

GMAC, which is a unit of Ally Bank, has hired a number of accounting and legal firms to go over its foreclosure procedures. The company earlier started reviewing foreclosure-related affidavits in 23 states, and in some cases halted the foreclosure process, though GMAC says it hasn't yet found evidence of "inappropriate" foreclosures.

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The Housing Market: Is It Time to Rent or to Buy?

The stalled economy, expiration of homebuyer tax credits, marked-down home prices, stubbornly high unemployment and concerns about a double-dip recession all leave prospective homebuyers wondering if now is the time. Is it time for renters to convert to buyers and for existing owners to grab that dream home on the cheap? Or will housing get even cheaper?

Home prices have plunged about 30% from their mid-2006 peak on average, with some areas, like Las Vegas, seeing prices plummet in excess of 60%. At the same time, foreclosures have continued to rise in 2010 from their 2009 historic highs and have pressured prices further.

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Homeowner Makes Sign In Foreclosure Fight

Juan Guzman has a large, lawn-wide sign in his front yard labeled 'JP Morgan Chase help.' It's his last hope to save his dream home.  The Acreage man built his house in 2007 but couldn't handle the mortgage payment of $3,600 a month.  He said he tried negotiating a lower loan from his bank but it wouldn't budge.  Last year Guzman became unemployed and now his house is in foreclosure.

Click Here to Read:   Homeowner Makes Sign In Foreclosure Fight....

Homeowning Rarely Has Been More Affordable Than Now

Buying a home can be a life-changing decision and one many people take seriously, especially in this market.

Part of becoming a responsible homeowner is weighing every aspect of the decision before buying, including lifestyle preferences, job and financial situation and affordability.

Fortunately, for anyone who is considering buying a home, current housing affordability conditions can benefit today’s buyers for years to come.

 According to economists at the National Association of Realtors, NAR’s housing affordability index could reach an all-time high of near 200 in the second half of this year.

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The Great Mortgage Mystery

The big question from the mortgage meltdown isn't why so many distressed homeowners are defaulting on their loans.

It's why any of them are still making payments.

In the worst-hit areas millions have no equity left, and little hope of seeing any anytime soon. The market value of their homes is far below the size of the mortgage.

If they just stop paying, what is going to happen to them? In many cases they may get to live in the home rent-free for months, even years, until the bank gets around to seizing it.

If Frank Abagnale—the con man played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film "Catch Me If You Can"—were operating today, he'd probably be living rent-free in a super-luxury high-rise in Miami.

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America's Most Expensive Homes

There's been a lot of denial among luxury homeowners. In 2006, it was thought that the luxury market wouldn't suffer the same fate as the broader market. A year later, high-end home buyers were thought to have endless, deep pockets, further insulating the top-tier from the cratering economy. As the nation's markets in 2008 went from bad to worse, some in the industry claimed that the dearth of trophy properties outstripped supply.

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Bob Eubanks Lists Westlake Village Home

Game-show host Bob Eubanks and his wife, Deborah James, have put their Westlake Village residence up for sale at $2,595,000.

On 3 1/2 acres at the end of a cul-de-sac, the Normandy-style home was built in 2006. The single-story house has custom built-in cabinetry, French doors, four bedrooms, an office and 4 1/2 bathrooms in nearly 5,000 square feet of living space. The kitchen has Viking appliances, granite counters and a marble backsplash.

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Heber B Creeper Leaves The Haunted Canyon To Visit

Whether your family enjoys spooky stories or a pleasant autumn excursion, Heber Valley Railroad has something for everyone this October.

Every year in October the Provo Canyon becomes haunted with ghosts and legends of its past. The safest way to experience the canyon is on the Heber Valley Railroad's Haunted Canyon ride departing every weekend at Vivian Park in Provo Canyon. This is a fun and exciting FAMILY Halloween activity because you are all together safely on aboard Utah's only historic railroad. The stories and legends are spooky and fun but not too scary for kids. You don't have to worry about losing anyone in a maze or haunted house.

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BofA Halts Foreclosures In 23 States

Bank of America has joined GMAC Mortgage and JP Morgan Chase in suspending foreclosure proceedings in 23 states where courts have jurisdiction over foreclosures, to check that it followed correct procedures in filing affidavits.

The latest development in the "robo-signing" controversy follows allegations that workers at GMAC Mortgage and JP Morgan Chase signed court affidavits that contained information they had not personally verified, opening the door to potential legal challenges.

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After Foreclosure: The Consequences of Bad Credit

After foreclosure, you can expect your credit score to drop – by as much as 180 points. Even if your home is lost through short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure, the result is the same – bad credit. Considering that you need a credit score of at least 580 to get a loan, a reasonable interest rate on a credit card, or even many apartments, the effect of foreclosure on your credit, and your life, is significant.

1. HOUSING: First, realize that after foreclosure, your housing situation is going to change. This may be somewhat obvious as you are losing your home, but consider the effect of foreclosure a bit deeper. You will not be able to purchase a home for at least seven years unless there were verifiable extenuating circumstances. Likewise, you may experience problems finding a new place to live as many landlords will not rent to people with bad credit (in many cases, property management agencies have strict guidelines prohibiting it). As such, it is in your best interest to apply for housing before filing for foreclosure (or at least spend time figuring out where you will live).


Credit Loan: After Foreclosure: The Consequences of Bad Credit...

Hands Off My house: Dutch Outlaw Squatting

The scene has unfolded countless times in the Netherlands: Young people break into an unused building, move in a table, chair and bed, and then tell the police they are now the official residents _ with no permission from the owner and no plans to pay rent.


On Friday, the once-respected Dutch tradition of squatting becomes illegal. It is the latest pillar of the country's liberal institutions _ such as legal prostitution and cafes that openly sell marijuana _ to be abolished or curtailed as the Dutch become more conservative and rethink the boundaries of their famed tolerance.

In Amsterdam, the epicenter of the movement known in Dutch as "kraken," or "breaking," squatters plan a demonstration Friday against the new law that makes their way of life punishable by up to one year in prison.

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Ten Habits Of Highly Effective Real Estate Investors

Real estate has long been regarded as a sound investment. Wholesaling and property management of commercial and residential property are just a few of the ways investors can profit from real estate, but it takes a little savvy to become successful in this competitive arena.

While certain universities do offer coursework and programs that specifically benefit real estate investors, such as the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School's Master of Science in Real Estate, a degree is not necessarily a prerequisite to profitable real estate investing. Whether an investor has a degree or not, there are certain characteristics that top real estate investors commonly possess.

Successful real estate investors:

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RealtyTrac: Chase and GMAC Could Prolong Housing Recovery

Halting the foreclosure process on tens of thousands of homes nationwide will likely skew RealtyTrac’s closely watched foreclosure data in coming months and prolong the housing market’s recovery, says Rick Sharga, a RealtyTrac senior vice president.

Chase and GMAC Mortgage Co. both suspended foreclosure sales in some states to review paperwork and the document-signing process. That means October and November’s reports will likely show an artificially low number of foreclosure starts. Some might interpret the falling numbers as improvement.  But “don’t get too excited about the market getting better,” Mr. Sharga warns.

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A New Way To Save Housing? Let The Rich Profit From Poor Homeowners

Could the government create a better housing rescue? Some people say it should try, and their favorite idea is “shared appreciation”—wherein rich investors profit from the travails of the poor.

The idea of the government helping transfer wealth from the poor to the rich may strike you as unseemly. But before you dismiss it, give it a listen. (And remember that by “the rich” we’re talking about anybody with money to invest. That could mean a member of the Forbes 400 but it could also be a pension fund for teachers or even a non-profit group set up by concerned neighbors.)

I’ve been interested in this idea of helping homeowners with equity infusions for a long while. Some bright people steeped in the economics of the housing market, including Michael Feder of housing-data analytics firm Radar Logic, have been lobbying officials at the U.S. Treasury to consider shared-appreciation programs. There’s been a fair amount of action in Congress on it, from both sides of the aisle. The big Frank-Dodd financial reform package passed this year contained language commanding the government to study shared-appreciation arrangements as a solution for the country’s housing ills. And on Wednesday Representative Gary Miller, a Republican from California, introduced H.R. 6256, “the Strengthening FHA Through Shared Equity Homeownership Act of 2010.”

Click Here to Read:   A New Way To Save Housing? Let The Rich Profit From Poor Homeowners...