Helping Homeowners and the Economy

In the 1930s we established the Home Owners Loan Corporation to refinance home loans that were approaching foreclosure.  The program helped over 1,000,000 homeowners to avoid foreclosure and it also made a few dollars over its lifetime (1933 - 1951).  Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has proposed a similar program to tackle our current real estate problems.  

Merkley has introduced Rebuilding Homeownership,  a government-financed trust to buy the mortgages of homeowners who are current on their existing mortgage and who meet "ordinary underwriting criteria".  Significantly, the program is aimed at those who do not have a government-backed mortgage and there are millions of these homeowners.  Those in this category would be eligible for new mortgage rates reflective of today's low rates.  There would be a 2% spread between the rates borrowers and the Treasury would pay.