Mel Watt, the new director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, announced last week that the agency will take a more proactive approach toward healing the housing market.
This decision could not have come soon enough.
Now that homeowners are not refinancing their mortgages as much as they were last year, when interest rates were lower, mortgage originations are at historic lows. Total home sales, however, have not dropped as precipitously simply because in the first quarter of this year, cash buyers made 43 percent of all home purchases—compared with less than 20 percent in 2001.
via Can FHFA Save the Mortgage Market? | Center for American Progress.
