My Opinion Piece Published on Reuters

First 100 days:  A fix for the housing crisis

In his speech to Congress, President Obama spoke of how the proper response to the economic crisis is not just a matter of immediate fixes, but also an opportunity to make investments that will serve the nation’s long-term interests. The same idea should govern the housing recovery plan. Otherwise, we get nothing more than a crutch when we need a cure.

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As much as short-term help is needed to keep more people from foreclosure, there is a big opportunity to get to the end of the crisis by starting at the beginning of the problem. The conventional wisdom is that subprime mortgages represent the beginning. In fact, the beginning goes back much further. The current crisis stems from the absence of a system that provides stability to the value of properties in the United States.

Instead, real estate “value” in the United States continues to be set through speculation, and that undermines the security – that is, the underlying asset – when mortgages are traded as part of complex financial instruments. We cannot ignore a simple truth of economics: if we are going to treat mortgages as securities, then they must be secured by the tangible asset: namely, land and buildings. To do otherwise has proven to be a recipe for disaster.

The opportunity before the U.S. government with a housing recovery plan is to set up a new system that will keep us from ever getting to this crisis point again. How? The devil is in the details.

It’s no accident that other countries, even those that trade mortgages as financial instruments (such as Australia and Canada) have avoided the levels of off-the-cuff valuation of property we’ve seen in the United States. The reason is that other countries have standardized the information needed to determine the genuine value of real estate and hence mortgage valuation.

This information – actual boundaries, property transfers, claims, liens, and so on – is made available to everyone. The system is sound and transparent. And where do they keep this information? In national property registries, which maintain all the data, in a standardized format, that buyers and sellers need to undertake transactions related to real property.

The United States has a broken registry system, and instead of ever fixing it allowed a title insurance industry to arise as a substitute. Title insurance is non-transparent and (at best) inconsistently regulated, yet it is the main system through which information about property valuation flows. Plus, you have to pay for the information. This leads to all sorts of problems, and fuels speculation.

The Obama Administration’s housing recovery plan ought to look forward. Help people facing foreclosure today, yes, but also establish a national, standardized property registry responsible for the collection of all titles and all information about characteristics of property. Even statewide registries would be a tremendous improvement.

The first step is to mandate an agency to gather whatever exists in state and local registries and title insurance companies around the country, no matter how inadequate, and centralize and standardize that information. Then, establish a mechanism for making this information available to all. Further, figure out how to fill in the missing information. Finally, create a system for the registry to provide remediation in the case of errors.

It is critical that we correct how the value of real estate is established. By finally securing the asset, we can guarantee long-term price stability and rid the system of the speculation that has put us in this crisis. Let’s look at the current housing crisis as an opportunity to make this long-term fix.

This isn’t about setting property prices now and letting them remain static. Rather, it’s about letting a dynamic property market flourish in a way that protects Americans from having to bail out banks or themselves in the future.