From White House fact sheet August 2004::::

# Expanding Homeownership. The President believes that homeownership is the cornerstone of America's vibrant communities and benefits individual families by building stability and long-term financial security. In June 2002, President Bush issued America's Homeownership Challenge to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to encourage them to join the effort to close the gap that exists between the homeownership rates of minorities and non-minorities. The President also announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families before the end of the decade. Under his leadership, the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent. Minority homeownership set a new record of 51 percent in the second quarter, up 0.2 percentage point from the first quarter and up 2.1 percentage points from a year ago. President Bush's initiative to dismantle the barriers to homeownership includes:

* American Dream Downpayment Initiative, which provides down payment assistance to approximately 40,000 low-income families;
* Affordable Housing. The President has proposed the Single-Family Affordable Housing Tax Credit, which would increase the supply of affordable homes;
* Helping Families Help Themselves. The President has proposed increasing support for the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program; and
* Simplifying Homebuying and Increasing Education. The President and HUD want to empower homebuyers by simplifying the home buying process so consumers can better understand and benefit from cost savings. The President also wants to expand financial education efforts so that families can understand what they need to do to become homeowners.

Interesting n'est pas?

Both Clinton and Bush touted the increase in homeownership as a positive indicator of their administrations.

Richard Fernandez ,author of the Belmont Club blog has a nice summary of the crisis . He notes that :



... [It] illustrate how pursuing an apparent social good like “affordable housing” can really lead to a nightmare. What formerly prevented failed social engineering schemes from having a global impact was the disconnectedness of command economies. They were self-limited in the amount of havoc they could cause. But in a world linked by vast financial systems and information architctures the consequences of an ill-conceived plan can cascade progressively. The problem with relying on more regulation to solve the problem is that it puts the very same political class which generated the problem in charge of preventing it.

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/

Related link :
http://www.charteredaccountants.com.au/files/documents/Credit_Crunch_Report.pdf