housing ideas.....

A semi quiet weekend ahead of us. Cassie has a swim meet tomorrow morning. Her swim team is the host, so I will be at the pool at 6:30am tomorrow morning to help get the swimmers signed in for the meet. Also, because we are the hosts, our team gets to warm up first, so Morgan will have to get Cassie to the pool around 7am for her 7:15am warmup. So, there will be no sleeping in tomorrow morning. :-(

The House passed the bailout bill, and they were in such a hurry to get it done, the made sure all the "legal" papers were ready, and it has been signed by the President, and is now law. We were told how important it was, and that it would help stabilize the markets, but someone forgot to tell the stock market, as it sunk over 157 points for the day.

Now in truth, it is not the stock market that this money is to help, but the credit market. The cry is that without this money, there would be no money "in the system", which would mean loans for normal people would grind to a halt, businesses would not be able to get money that might be needed to pay bills, and an overall "sky is falling" scenario.

Why then keep mentioning the stock market? It is an easy number for Americans to understand. We like easy. Ugh!

In any case, the main problem are houses being foreclosed on, and nobody wanting, or able to purchase them. So, after looking on the internet, reading some different "what is going on" stories, and pilfering some ideas from other accountants, I have a few ideas to help get this moving again. Not perfect, but some ideas. Also, all of these assume that we are in a "correction" with regards to housing prices, and that we start back up at a normal rate of appreciation in the future.

- Allow those who are in default, or will be in default soon because of the terms of their loans changing, and that want to renegotiate their loan interest rates to do so. This is part of the new law, and thankfully the provision was dropped to allow a reduction in principle. Yes, you might be "upside down" now, but if you love the house, be willing to stay in it, and the value will increase over time.
- Along the same lines, when settling these loans with homeowners that want to keep their homes, bring all balances forward to start a re-amortization, and abate all late penalties and additional interest added on in prior months when payments were missed.
- For houses that are in foreclosure, and are bank owned. Drop the capital gains rate for those houses to 5% or 10%, or possible zero, for the person who buys them, if they are purchased within the next six months to a year. At the same time, increase the amount you can take each year on capital losses from the current $3000 to $10,000. These would sweeten the pot for investors, and might encourage people to buy these homes up, thus putting money in the banks hands, which in turn would go to repay the government. My feeling is that the quicker we relieve the market of these homes, the better it is for neighborhoods, and people in general. Also, I believe that a person/investor will put in effort into keeping these houses up, so they could be sold, or rented to their best advantage.

Again, not perfect, but for this lowly accountant, seems like an idea to keep those who want to stay in their homes, in them, and get these homes off the bank/government books, and into the hands of investors that would love to make money and pay little or no taxes on the gain.

Of course, personal responsibility should also be on that list, but I think I have mentioned that enough over the past few weeks. :-)

Again, anyone from the McCain camp that wants to "borrow" this plan, please have at it. :-)

So, Governor Palin and her husband released their last two years of tax returns. Guess they are middle class. Upper middle, but still middle. These are very basic returns, and are not complex at all. Of course the part that ills me the most is that they use H&R Block. :-(

I'm crying here Todd and Sarah. There has to be a qualifies accountant somewhere in town. If not, again call, and I will be more than happy to take you on as clients. :-)

Or maybe there is no accountant in town, in which case I wonder how Morgan would feel about Alaska. HA HA HA!!!

BTW, as a follow-up to the posts I did earlier about Josh Hamilton. His season ended last Sunday, as his Texas Rangers dd not make the playoffs, but it was no fault of his. He had a fabulous season, and will get plenty of votes and support for American League MVP. I will be following him closely, and hope and pray he only gets better.

- This was Morgan and Cassie's Friday afternoon entertainment.
- More Lego video game fun.
- My favorite comic strip.

Until the next time.....