HomeLatest NewsFeatured HomebuildersHome Buyer ResourcesBinding ArbitrationResource LinksSubmit ComplaintsView ComplaintsTake Action 101!Report Mortgage FraudMortgage Fraud NewsForeclosure NewsConstruction DefectsHome DefectsPhoto GalleryFoundation ProblemsHomeowner Website LinksHOA Reform

HUD FEATURE
1981 - 2015 HUD's
Legacy of Scandals

HOBB-Over 1M visits monthly
Daily Visitors Over 37,000
 Highest Daily 70,723

Main Menu
Home
Latest News
Featured Homebuilders
Home Buyer Resources
Binding Arbitration
Resource Links
Submit Complaints
View Complaints
Take Action 101!
Report Mortgage Fraud
Mortgage Fraud News
Foreclosure News
Construction Defects
Home Defects
Photo Gallery
Foundation Problems
Homeowner Website Links
HOA Reform
Featured Topics
Builder Death Spiral
Report Mortgage Fraud
Foreclosure Special Report
Mold & New Home Guide
Special News Reports
Centex & Habitability
How Fast Can They Build Them?
TRCC Editorial
Texas TRCC Scandal
Texas Watch - Tell Lawmakers
TRCC Recommendations
Sandra Bullock
People's Lawyer
Prevent Nightmare Homes
Choice Homes
Smart Money
Weekly Update Message
HOBB Archives
About HOBB
Contact Us
Fair Use Notice
Legislative Work
Your House

 HOBB News Alerts
and Updates

Click Here to Subscribe

Support HOBB - Become a Sustaining Member
Who's Online
ABC Special Report
Investigation: New Home Heartbreak
Trump - NAHB Homebuilders Shoddy Construction and Forced Arbitration

Property Rights Denied!
Protecting HOA Members' Rights is NOT The #1 Priority
of Managed Communities
The High Price of Managed Living, Books and Records Hidden
gives appearances of impropriety
Editorial Feature: Part One - Are Homeowners' Rights a Myth? 

Part Two: HOA Bureaucrats Overstep Their Authority

NAHB look for more protection and federal risky handouts
Saturday, 29 May 2010

UPDATED May 28, 2010: Building industry wants the U.S. Treasury Dept to guarantee builders' loans
More of, Builders against big govt except when they're for it: Building industry economist urges careful regulation, says govt just gets in the way. Except when builders are looking for a tax break, bailout, or govt to guarantee their development loans.

UPDATED May 28, 2010: Building industry wants the U.S. Treasury Dept to guarantee builders' loans

National Association of Home Builders pushes H.R. 5409, the Residential Construction Lending Act. More ways for taxpayers to support an industry that took part in creating a housing bubble/bust, while many of its CEOs enjoy multi-million dollar annual pay packages.

EDITED, new material May 28:
More of, Builders against big govt except when they're for it: Building industry economist urges careful regulation, says govt just gets in the way. Except when builders are looking for a tax break, bailout, or govt to guarantee their development loans.

Also, banking industry calling for "less regulation" of itself.

TX judge says Legislature is a "patsy for the homebuilders."

Public Citizen: wolves were guarding the henhouse

NAHB, May 27, 2010

(Excerpts)

Legislation introduced yesterday by Reps. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) and original co-sponsors Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Joe Baca (D-Calif.) would help alleviate the severe lack of credit for acquisition, development and construction (AD&C) financing ...

H.R. 5409, the Residential Construction Lending Act, would create a new residential construction loan guarantee program within the Department of Treasury to provide loans to builders with viable construction projects. ...

Full article: http://www.nahb.org/news_details.aspx?sectionID=148&newsID=10826
------------------------

Economist urges careful regulation

by Chuck Slothower
Herald Staff Writer

Friday, May 28, 2010
A housing-industry economist cautioned policymakers Thursday against the unintended consequences of regulation.
Elliot Eisenberg, senior economist for the National Association of Home Builders, said regulation always increases costs.

"Government just plain out gets in the way," he said.

Eisenberg spoke for nearly two hours at a Strater Hotel dinner hosted by the Home Builders Association of Southwest Colorado. He mixed a bit of Economics 101 - supply and demand curves, elasticity and mobility - with examples of regulation gone awry.

Eisenberg said a ban on TV liquor advertising has simply driven alcohol ads to the Internet, while restrictions on purchasing products that contain ingredients to make methamphetamine have pushed meth production to Mexico.

The economist urged market incentives as a better tool to change behavior.

"You can almost always set up market incentives to solve problems that are better than regulation," Eisenberg said.

One example he gave was an effort to clean up Germany's Rhine River. Charging companies to pollute has proved far more successful than requiring them to install pollution-prevention equipment, Eisenberg said.

The audience of builders and real estate agents was receptive, in contrast to Eisenberg's speech in November 2007, when La Plata County commissioner Wally White and others took issue with his characterization of regulation. Eisenberg has spoken in Durango at least three times.

He pointed to a local disparity at the Strater talk.

"You are a remarkably expensive city in a remarkably poor county," he said, adding that Strater Hotel employees "aren't going to buy a house here. That's a pipe dream for them."

In breaking a bit of bad news, Eisenberg said housing indicators have declined in May after the expiration of the federal first-time homebuyer tax credit.

Eisenberg encouraged what he called "dynamic zoning," where zoning rules allow denser development over time. But he cautioned that regulation must be well thought-out.

"Be wary of doing these things," he said. "You have to be really careful."

http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2010/05/28/Economist_urges_carefu...
-----------------------

May 28 2010

ABA to Treasury: 'Stop the regulations!'

The American Bankers Association (ABA) sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other government bodies, arguing that the regulatory burden faced by traditional banks is reaching a “breaking point,” and calling on the administration to address the situation.

Full article: (Free today, can't say it will be forever.) http://www.respanews.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=B3A09A2DB2BB4225BF...
----------------------

Home Owners for Better Building covers TX issues pretty well and found a local story along these same lines, though it goes on in every state. Nice to see a judge say it so succinctly:

The San Antonio Current

"The Legislature is a Patsy for Homebuilders!"

That's County Judge Nelson Wolff in yesterday's Bexar County Commissioners Court expressing his frustration with flimsy state law that allows for messes to develop like the one currently found in Ventura Heights, an unincorporated subdivision near Converse. ...

Full article: http://www.hobb.org/content/view/3408/1/
-----------------------------

U.S. Chambers of Commerce, which supports many irresponsible business practices that Americans end up paying for in the end, is not surprisingly among those again calling for less regulation regardless of the damage that American industries have been causing.

May 28 2010

U.S. Chamber complaining about regulation before proposals hit the street

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce likes to claim that regulation stifles the economy and prevents businesses from creating jobs. But it seems like the president of the Chamber, Tom Donohue, jumped the gun in complaining about regulations after the BP oil catastrophe...
...
The Bush administration consistently cut funding for the regulatory agencies and put industry-friendly leadership at many of the agencies. As Public Citizen’s Tyson Slocum pointed out, Obama talked around defanged and demoralized agencies in his remarks yesterday: “Congress mandated that only 30 days could be allocated before a yes or no answer was given. That was by law. So MMS’s hands were tied. And as a consequence, what became the habit, predating my administration, was you just automatically gave the environmental waiver, because you couldn’t complete an environmental study in 30 days.” Slocum explains that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) has plenty of latitude to disapprove plans that could “cause serious harm or damage to life.”

One contributing factor definitely was wolves were guarding the henhouse and granting waivers without giving proper attention to the risks in doing so.

So to talk now about the risk of over-regulating is to completely miss the point of what has just happened. What we need to do is go in and reinvigorate the agencies that protect our workers and our environment, and to make sure that these representatives are serving the American people and not big businesses.
...

Full article: http://citizenvox.org/2010/05/28/u-s-chamber-complaining-about-regulatio..

 
< Prev

 Texas, First Home Lemon Law Debated in the Nation
Homebuyers Need a Home Lemon Law

Search HOBB.org

 Beware of HOA Payment Plan! 

HOA Foreclosures Big Business 
ON THE COMMONS with Shu Bartholomew
Dr. Evan McKenzie HOA Governments

Reckless Endangerment
BY: GRETCHEN MORGENSON
and JOSHUA ROSNER

Outsized Ambition, Greed and
Corruption Led to
Economic Armageddon


Amazon
Barnes & Noble

 Feature
Rise and Fall of Predatory Lending and Housing

NY Times: Building Flawed American Dreams 
Read CATO Institute: 
HUD Scandals

Listen to NPR:
Reckless Endangerman
by
Gretchen Morgenson : How 'Reckless' Greed Contributed
to Financial Crisis - Fannie Mae

ATTENTION TAXPAYERS:
 
Pulte-Centex $900 Million Grant
Bad Guys at Countrywide Profit on Mortgage Toxins

NPR Special Report
Part I Listen Now
Perry Home - No Warranty 
Part II Listen Now
Texas Favors Builders

Washington Post
The housing bubble, in four chapters
BusinessWeek Special Reports
Bonfire of the Builders
Homebuilders helped fuel the housing crisis
Housing: That Sinking Feeling

Arbitration Fairness Now!
Sen Feingold, Rep Johnson
Introduce Consumer Justice
 
Senate Passes Franken
Binding Arbitration Amendment
  
   
Public Citizen Report 
Home Court Advantage
 

 (See photos) & Latest News

Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence
 Arbitration Hearing,
Video of Homeowners
Testimony Advance to 1:55

Arbitration Bill Passes Senate
Four years to fight to get in court is not a day in Court, Jamie Leigh Jones 

 


Legislative
Watch
TEXAS ABOLISHES BUILDERS
PROTECTION AGENCY TRCC
 


Texas Regulates Homebuyers
 
Texas Comptroller Condemns TRCC Builder Protection Agency
TRCC is the punishment phase of homeownership in Texas

HOBB Update Messages

Consumer Affairs Builder Complaints

 TRCC Implosion
 TRCC Shut Down
 Sunset Report

IS YOUR STATE NEXT?
As Goes Texas So Goes the Nation
Knowledge and Financial Responsibility are still Optional for Texas Home Builders

OUTSTANDING FOX4 REPORT
TRCC from Bad to Worse
Case of the Crooked House

Perry's Gifts Keep on Talking
Sun Never Sets On Politicians Taking Homebuilder Money

TRCC AN ARRESTING EXPERIENCE
The Pat and Bob Egert Building & TRCC Experience 

Homebuilder's Right-To-Repair Illusion

Builders Looking for Federal Handouts

How Texas Home Building Industry shaped the TRCC to regulate buyers 

SpotLight
LiveTalk Internet

Build it right the first time
An interview with Janet Ahmad

HUD's Broken System
From HUD's Deregulation to Disgrace
Did HUD Secretary Cisneros
 Mastermind Predatory Lending?

Take Action
Ban Binding Mandatory Arbitration

Send a message urging your Congressman to support all legislation banning this unfair practice

Voting Texas Style
What Lawmaker is Voting for you?

Most Read

 Give Me Back My Rights Campaign
Model State Arbitration Legislation
Fair Homebuyer Contract Model

Bad Binding Arbitration Experience?
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or call 1-210-402-6800

NCPIRG
Homebuyers' Bill of Rights
Tips for a Better Built Home and to Protect Your Investment

Drum Major Institute
for Public Policy

Tort Deform
Report Your Arbitration Experience

Homebuilding Texas Style
And the walls came
tumblin' down

 Texas Homebuilder
Bob Perry Political Contributions

  The Agency Bob Perry Built
 TRCC Connection News
Tort Reform

NPR Interview - Perry's
Political influence movement.
Click to listen 

Texas Homebuyers
Fight for Rights

TRCC Abolish or Fix
or Pass Home Lemon Law
or
Homebuyers Bill of Rights

POLICYHOLDERS OF AMERICA POLL
82% would not vote back in office any legislator, regardless of party, that is soft on bad homebuilders?

REWARD
MOST WANTED

ARIZONA REGISTRAR OF CONTRACTORS
Have you seen any of these individuals

Pulte Homeowner Survey
Warranty & Mortgage Experience
 Click to participate

Tort Reform Feature
Texas Monthly
 Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad!

Special Money Report
Big Money and Shoddy Construction:Texas Home Buyers Left Out in the Cold
Read More
Read Report: Big Money…
Home Builder Money Source of Influence

Letters to the Editor
Write your letters to the Editor

Homeowner Websites

top of page

© 2024 HomeOwners for Better Building
Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.