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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romeny released a housing white paper Friday, calling for GSE reform and repeal of Dodd-Frank.
September 21 -
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan defended efforts by the Obama administration to help the housing market recover, arguing it faced significant hurdles over the past four years.
October 2 -
The real-estate industry is using this week's Republican convention to flex its political muscles, defending the tax deduction for mortgage interest and calling for changes to the qualified residential mortgage exception.
August 29
WASHINGTON — The biggest elephant in the room this election season may be the roof over your head.
Observers have repeatedly mentioned that neither of the first two presidential debates — which mostly focused on domestic issues — included a word about the housing crisis.
"Since the third debate is focused on foreign policy, it is now safe to say that we have traversed the 2012 presidential campaign without a significant discussion of housing issues," Isaac Boltansky, an analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading, said in a note Wednesday morning.
The only housing-related content from the second debate Tuesday, Boltansky pointed out, dealt with whether mortgage interest deductions would be preserved in a tax reform plan.
Of course, getting a clear picture anywhere else on the campaign trail about what Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would do about foreclosures, underwater borrowers and sagging mortgage growth isn't any easier.
So even using their past statements to simulate what the candidates would have said if they had been asked about the housing crisis during the debates is a challenge. Yet here's our best attempt to succeed where the debates failed in parsing their views on the issue.
President Obama:
The Obama administration was somewhat active on housing in the first part of 2012, with the president unveiling a
But any details about a plan for moving forward on housing reform have been limited. The administration released a white paper in February on reforming the government sponsored enterprises, but did not endorse any of the
The issue gained some traction last spring, when the president
Obama also visited the home of a couple
But Obama's campaign website lacks an "issues" page about housing, and any comprehensive ideas — or even broad outlines — about what one could expect on housing in a second Obama term are missing. The only real reference on the website is in the
Former Gov. Mitt Romney:
Although his housing plan is sparse, Romney has at least put mortgages on the table this campaign season. His campaign has a housing section among other issues on its website summarizing a white paper he released in September on reforming the GSEs.
But the
Romney is also still contending with criticism over his
The campaign's
"Any serious plan for ending the housing crisis must address its root cause. Two government-sponsored companies known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the center of the housing crisis," the website adds. "Mitt Romney will reform these government-sponsored companies to protect taxpayers from additional risk in the future by ensuring taxpayer dollars in the housing market are replaced with private dollars."