markmax as usual you are missing the point. Your perspective on whether the programs are failures or not is jaded. The object of these programs was simply to kick the can down the road all at taxpayer expense. In that sense, these programs are doing just what they are intended to do. That is what Wall Street wanted all along and that is what Wall Street knew the govt would do. So to call these programs a failure is incorrect. The result is a horrible manipulated market where assets are not sold at the correct value. It is a long running manipulated fraudulent market where all the risk is taxpayer funded and all the reward goes to Wall Street.
What we all know is that as bubbles inflate and then pop, the larger the market that the bubble is in, the more peripheral damage is done when the bubble pops. We went from an equities bubble to a real estate bubble. The equities bubble popped and that hurt… then the real estate bubble popped and that hurt more…. really bad… now we have the bond market bubble… when that pops it will be even worse. I know that and you know that… and anyone buying a home should know that…
However when will that happen? Nobody knows that. What I can say is that the train has left the station and the govt has been and will continue to be complicit with Wall Street in manipulating the real estate market all done with insurance for the overvalued assets provided to investors at taxpayer expense. So in reality the programs are doing exactly what they were intended to do. The programs stumble and bumble along and the govt has to keep throwing more and more money and incentives to investors and servicers to get them to use the programs.
If you believe that the bond market will crash in the near future, there is no reason to buy a home. If you think the market will be flooded with reo properties (like it should have been and should presently be if the market was not so fundamentally manipulated) and you will see substantial price drops because you think the real estate market is a free market… then you are incorrect.
