Mr Frank also had some advanced linguistics training while there!

most people who were as complicit in the housing debacle might sort of lay low but you’ve got to hand it to barney; he is right out in front, espousing his liberal prattle that will serve only to prevent a market clearing and delay recovery.

what a country!

There are a number of “economists” who would have benefited by sticking with Econ 101 and “supply and demand” rather than learning to develop complex and meaningless models. Then they might have seen this coming.

The real estate market is buoyed by jobs, as jobs decline, the real estate market must necessarily decline as the two are not separable.

Therefore, real estate will be forced to continue its downward march until such time as sustainable jobs return in numbers to our landscape.

We have not seen the worst of the job losses and the price of real estate will continue to decline as desperation and foreclosures will dictate price rather than original or replacement costs.

Perhaps Mr. Frank would do well to comprehend this basic force of economics rather than spending fruitless time and money dwelling on the symptoms of a jobless society.

Igor seems to grasp the situation entirely; deflation

All that easy lending would do would be to encourage speculators [Who somehow manage to have multiple primary residences] to buy them. The rental market is glutted, so when the prices fall, the condos are abandoned.

It will just end up one more way for assets to move from the balance sheet of developers to the balance sheet of the taxpayers.

They can play all the games they want with financing, but ultimately it’s going to take a lot of people moving in or a wrecking ball to solve the problems with the condo market.

… a 70 percent sales threshold “may be too onerous” and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments, according to the paper.

Last time I checked, America was fighting the monster of too much inventory, or as Igor puts it, “Too Much!” So one would think that the above is exactly what responsible policymakers would be striving for — the market discouraging new developments.