I was talking with our financial analyst the other day. His company, Ameriprise, has one of the more pessimistic forecasts out there on when the turnaround will happen.  They predict that we won’t be back to the October 2007 stock market levels until January 2010, but that once we hit that mark, we’ll be on a new surge that will be long-term and rapid.  He admitted that the analysis came out before the Feds decided to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Some analysts feel that the improvement in the housing market will occur mid-year in 2009 following a couple quarters’ drop in the stock of housing on the market.  Hopefully, with Freddie and Fannie able to help more home owners in distress, we will see a quicker end to the slide in housing prices and the increase in days on market because there will be fewer emergency sales due to foreclosure.

Now, according to the latest AP news story, Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Charles Schumer of New York are urging James Lockhart of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to do everything in his power to put a 90 day freeze on foreclosure and to approve as many refinanced loans for people who are late with payments as possible.

The article goes on to say that these Senators encourage Freddie and Fannie to follow the example of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., that has worked with IndyMac and other banks to negotiate with homeowners in default to switch loans to a low fixed rate.

No one knows if these measures will have a bandaid effect, rather like the economic stimulus checks, or whether there will be genuine turn-around in the economic affairs of the country coming out of these measures to shore up our housing guarantee programs.

Let’s hope for the best, and for a turn-around that starts sooner rather than later!

Liz Nichols

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