Recently the good news was that the home industry was coming out of the slide it has been in for a couple of years….at least that is what the pundits would have us believe but there is more to this story than the good news that has been reported.

U.S. mortgage applications slid last week even as mortgage rates edged lower, with requests for loans to buy homes declining for the first time since early July, an industry group said on Wednesday.The Mortgage Bankers Association’s applications index fell by a seasonally adjusted 2.2 percent in the week ended August 28, as demand for both purchase and refinance loans slipped.

Economic stimulus that has boosted consumer optimism, signs that home prices have neared a bottom, and federal programs such as a soon-expiring first-time home buyers tax credit have turned more fence-sitters into house purchasers, industry experts said.

The big question is what will happen to the housing market when the incentive to buy fades?   The first-time buyer’s market has been robust, but not the move-up market — or the market for existing homeowners looking to trade up to a larger home. It will take consistent news of rising home prices to lure the move-up buyer, most realtors agree.

According to Reuters:

The U.S. Mortgage Bankers Association will call on Congress to transform U.S. government-controlled mortgage lenders Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac into several smaller privately held companies that would issue mortgage securities with a government guarantee, the Wall Street Journal reported.The proposed framework, to be released Wednesday by the industry group, would give successor entities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac authority to create securities backed by certain types of mortgage, the paper said.

According to the paper, the new companies would guarantee the securities against defaults on underlying mortgages and pay fees into a federal insurance fund, which would guarantee interest and principal payments to bondholders if the companies were unable to make them.

The WSJ said the MBA’s plan called for government agencies, rather than the new companies, to assume the “mission” of promoting affordable housing that Congress has long assigned to Fannie and Freddie.

The new companies also would not be allowed to hold large amounts of mortgages and securities under the proposal, the paper said.

Okay, this smells like yet another attempt for these parasites to find another way to use the homeowners to further their rape of the economy.  Yes, they would be limited on what they could hold…but how long would it take for them to change that with a new president?  The regulation that could be put into place…could be dissolved with the appearance of new blood in the White House and Congress…it has happened before and it will most assuredly happen again.