WASHINGTON — Uncle Sam wants you — to rent a house from Uncle Sam. The Obama administration said on Wednesday that it was soliciting ideas on how to turn the federal government’s inventory of foreclosed houses into rental properties that could be managed by private enterprises or sold in bulk.
The goal, the administration said, is to stabilize neighborhoods where large supplies of empty, foreclosed properties have hurt property values. In addition, the plan is an effort to clear the nation’s balance sheet of real estate holdings that, because they have been difficult to sell individually, have hung over the housing market and stunted sales of existing homes and new construction. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Treasury Department are jointly requesting ideas for sales, partnership ventures or other strategies that would help to unload approximately 250,000 properties owned by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration. Those properties account for about half of all properties that have been foreclosed upon and are still awaiting resale nationwide. As it considers the proposals, the government-sponsored enterprises that now own the houses will continue to offer individual properties for sale, Edward J. DeMarco, acting director of housing finance agency, said Wednesday. But the government says it believes that given the slow pace of those sales, it must find new ways in which properties can be pooled, sold and privately managed as rentals. Continued .......... http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110810/ZNYT02/108103023/-1/news?Title=U-S-Seeks-Ideas-on-Renting-Out-Foreclosed-Property -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
