To an extent, you are correct. However, I think there are still a couple of fundamental issues that a rate cut all by itself won't solve:
For people who have purchased homes with little or no down payment, the recent decline in real estate prices has made their loans "upside down" meaning that even if they can to afford the monthly mortgage payment, it may make economic sense for them to just walk away from the home and turn it over to the bank. Why continue to pay a loan on a $300K mortgage if the house is worth only $275K? Personally I think such a decision is very short-sided -- in theory this buyer could walk away from house #1 and immediately buy house #2 at $275K, but in reality anyone who does this takes a hit on their credit rating and so probably can't afford the $275K house, so they end up leaving the home owner market. The result is a continuing downward pressure on housing prices.
The other issue is the boneheaded investment decisions that have been made by many of the financial institutions, where they totally underestimated the risk of trading mortgages and the derivatives from them - they did not properly anticipate the effects of lower real estate values on their holdings. So now Bear Stearns gets its due, and who knows whether Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch may be next.
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