Well, here I go again, violating real estate 101 … never talk politics or religion with your clients. I guess I’m only partially violating this rule because this opinion piece is directed toward my fellow Realtors.
In just a few days we’re going to have a presidential election that can forever change the course and character of our great nation. For me, it’s about individualism, capitalism and free enterprise that make our nation the shining beacon of freedom throughout the world. The other side is an ever-expanding government that has been eroding our private individual liberties and openly encouraging government dependence, to create a voting block that will propagate one party rule.
Sure, that’s just my opinion, and I know others will vehemently disagree. It’s great that we still have a country where people can freely express their opinions. How does this affect the real estate industry and its participants directly? Luckily, we have Obama’s track record to refer to here, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do to show that based on his track record, if reelected, the chances are extremely high that his past actions will be good indicators for what is coming toward the real estate industry in the next four years with no worry about reelection.
One of the early moves President Obama made after his election was a proposal to reduce the home mortgage interest rate deduction. Sure, I understand this, and a lot of the other examples I’m  going to cite, may have what some perceive as a collective good benefit. Perhaps it is just a change in society that is long overdue. But, I believe these examples, when taken together; definitively show that President Obama is no friend to the real estate industry.
Go back to the first proposal by President Obama to reduce the home interest rate deduction. This was included as part of the President’s budget proposal for 2010 for all my fact checking friends reading this. Sure, to make it palatable, it was to start for those in the higher tax brackets. Once in place, does anyone really doubt that when the government needs more money, as it always does, we would see those tax brackets slowly decrease?
Luckily, even with full control of all branches of the federal government, this proposal was not passed. Just thinking about it, I don’t believe any budget that President Obama has proposed has ever been passed! Now I could be wrong, but I just don’t recall any time that the government has been running for years without an approved budget.
The second fact that I’d like to bring to light occurred in December 2011, when the Senate approved a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut. You see, this tax cut was in exchange for an increase in fees on all new mortgages backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). As you know, approximately nine out of 10 new mortgages are backed by these agencies.
It was projected that these new government mortgage fees would add approximately $180 a year to a $200,000 loan and $360 a year for $400,000 loan! Sure, these new fees are built-in to the loan but they’re also payable throughout the entire life of the loan. So in essence, for a two-month payroll tax cut, the majority of loans issued in the United States now have a new fee built-in to their repayment schedule.
Lastly, the real estate industry narrowly missed another bullet aimed at it in the first year of President Obama’s term … The American Clean Energy and Security Act. The part of this bill affecting us in the real estate industry would have basically created mandatory energy audits for all home sellers in the United States!
Sure, under the guise of creating more energy-efficient homes, politicians didn’t seem to give a second thought about the constitutional rights of its citizens. Perhaps this proposal would’ve had a better chance of passing, if they just applied it to new construction.
When reading this legislation, it immediately brought to mind thoughts of the TSA. Sure, the homeowner would not have had to pay (at least in its initial stages) to bring their home up to some preset energy efficiency level. They would have to pay for the report itself (and give it to the buyer), and since the report would most likely have to be done by some new green shirted government agency, this would just be another potentially expensive cost added to the home sellers cost.
Yes, I know I’m being tough here, and perhaps these mandatory energy audits should have been pushed more like a new jobs bill. Sure, just like the TSA we could get tens of thousands former fast food workers (we really don’t need so many fast food outlets anyway) into the new government mandatory home energy audit Bureau, supply them with nice bright green shirts, embroidered with the agency’s new tree logo, give them two weeks of training (the majority of which would be geared toward diversity acceptance) and send them out to search through every crack and cranny of all home seller’s residences.
Lastly, we have Obama-care, where a new 3.8% provision was squirreled away that will affect many home sellers starting January 2013. Although the media has done a great job convincing the masses that this 3.8% tax will only affect those having an adjusted gross income over $200,000, what’s not being reported is that after the current tax exclusion on the sale of your principal residence, any additional gain is added to your adjusted gross income in the year of the sale. So, if you’ve been a long time owner of a California home, and even though you’re making just $40,000 a year in retirement, depending on the gain from the sale of your home, over the current tax exclusion, you may be in for a substantial additional tax.
What’s really disconcerting to me is that all of the above examples affecting the real estate industry were proposed or passed during the worst time for the housing market since the Great Depression! If President Obama is reelected I have no doubt that we will see another push for reduction in the home mortgage interest rate deduction right-off as well as mandatory energy audits. So just as the industry is getting to its feet,  if such proposals are passed, there is a high probability we will hit the canvas again.
Agree or disagree with me, please agree that it’s time to violate real estate 101 and talk politics, at least to your fellow Realtors! It’s time to take back our country!
Great article-very insiteful and I have already voted. We have to get government out of our way so we can make the real estate business work and America work.
Thanks,
Inis
Great article. I just can’t understand why people don’t see the need to limit government and encourage business and growth.
I’m courious. Who is running that can help us? As it stands 13 days out, neither Obama nor Romney will win with enough margin to have any real clout. The Senate will probably be Democratic, the House Republican. Same old stuff we had with Bush. He ran us in a ditch and stole most of the freedoms we had left. The two we have to choose from aren’t any better and neither is the congress. I heard someone say nationalize the banks, well, they are already nationalized with regulations. Why not have the congress remove the regulations that are killing us? Why not? Because they don’t listen to any of us once they get elected. NAR has no clout and neither do we. I like your column but you didn’t provide a way to correct the ills we all suffer from and that is how to get the congress and the president, whoever he is, to listen to those of us who make this country work.
it is a no branier, Unfortunaley, many in the US lack functional thinking.
Vote the CHICAGO POLITICIAN AND COMMUNITY AGITATOR OUT !
I’m tired of how great Obama is for bailing out a loser company. Just remember too, all Obama did was write out the check. Us taxpayers paid the bill. Do you think if we had the chance to vote on whether or not we wanted to bail out Detroit even Democrats would???
Why should GM be any different than any other company that goes bankrupt? Why don’t we bail them out too? What about all the wasted stimulus money too? It’s easy for any president to write out a check when he isn’t the one paying for it. Heck, it’s real good for votes.
I’ll end with this. I’ll never buy another GM vehicle again because they’re garbage, I’ll buy a Ford any day over a GM . I have a 97 Ford F150 that is still running strong. I had 2 Chevy’s before that and they were junk. Nothing but problems. Maybe if GM made decent cars and trucks like Ford, they wouldn’t need taxpayer bailouts. Hey, that’s right, Ford didn’t get a bailout!
Don’t worry. Be happy. Don’t worry. Be happy. I have to say Romney because people who work hard and get money should not have to give it up to the people in life who don’t try at all
Ok to all the dem. What do you have to say now? Obama has NOT been telling the truth about Benghazi. The emails PROVE it and he has been miss leading EVERYONE.
He also waited 7 hrs before sending help!
Obama lied about healthcare cost, the lied about bringing down the unemployment rate, the lied about “shovel ready jobs” (even joked about it afterwards) in the stimulus bill,he lied about Benghazi, and most recently, in the last debate, he lied about his apology tour! Just because he didn’t use the words I apologize, listening to his speech in Egypt, that’s exactly what he did… Apologize for America!
Sure, all politicians lie! But, in my lifetime. I can’t recall any president that has lied is much as Mr. Obama! Obama definitely deserves the title. “Liar in chief”
Good article! I’m definitely going to send this link around. Don’t think it’ll have much effect on liberal realtors. Oh, perhaps I shouldn’t use the word liberal, I think they like progressive better, or do they like socialist. Well, for sure. I know they don’t like communist! I guess I just stick with liberal.
If I may, there’s a great YouTube video entitled, arguing with the liberal. It offers some valid points in a lighthearted way. The link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ZvQsP48pQ
I agree hole hardly Obama needs to go and I vote to get him out…He is a scary person, has anyone seen 2016, if not rent it and ask your liberal friends that may have an open mind or are waffling.
Hopefully 3rd time’s the charm, I keep trying to reply and it disappears. Remember economic recovery starts with the Real Estate Market AND They cannot make everyone rich, but they can make us all poor. Think twice about redistributing the wealth. I would prefer to work hard and take my chances to become wealthy and then redistribute my own wealth as I see fit.
I’m curious. How did FNMA and FHA get funded before?
I’m curious. What would have been the taxes paid by the long term homeowner using the taxes that were in place and assumptions made when he bought the home. I know– it would ‘ve been a heck of a lot more. If he had been married, neitgher the wife not him would have paid a penny…
You say “For me, it’s about individualism, capitalism and free enterprise”. Please tell me one individual liberty you’ve lost? The DJIA is a good marker to measure capitalism. Where does it stand now compared to when Obama took office.
What is a fair tax rate? Perhaps the rates we had under Reagan?
If taxes are too high, why do people buy lottery tickets? Why did MarkZuckenberg start Facebook? Why did Gates and Jobs start their companies when tax rates were higher? Why don’t people get that you cannot defeat dreams with taxes. Only old, stoic companies really bitch about taxes, when in fact it is the fact that they are being replaced with more energetic, innovation that is driving down their profits.
Only problem I have are the real facts:
Obama’s economic recovery — which started in June 2009, five months after he was sworn in — has been worse than any recovery since the Great Depression.
Overall economic growth has been slower in this recovery than in any of the previous post-World War II recoveries, according to the Minneapolis Fed, using data from Bureau of Economic Analysis.
In the 12 quarters since the Obama recovery started, real GDP has climbed 6.7%. That’s below even the GDP growth rate in the 12 quarters after the 1980 recession ended — despite the fact that there was the intervening deep and prolonged 1981-82 recession.
Obama often boasts that the economy has added 5.2 million private-sector jobs in the 31 months since employment bottomed out in February 2010. But that rate of job growth lags every previous recovery as well if, as Obama does, you start counting at the point where jobs bottomed out.
Bush oversaw 5.3 million new private-sector jobs in the 31 months after employment hit bottom in mid-2003. Under Reagan, private-sector jobs climbed 8.2 million during a comparable time period.
What’s more, Obama’s recovery has reclaimed only about half the jobs lost during the recession. That’s a far cry from prior recoveries, which saw the number of jobs exceed the previous peak by this point.
In fact, had job growth under Obama kept pace with the previous worst recovery since World War II, there would be nearly 6 million more people with jobs today.
I say, Out with the lawyer & in with the businessman!
Your intuition was correct, you should not break the cardinal rule of openly talking politics.
Since your real estate business is booming under the Obama administration, please send the “50 % of your potential client base”, that you just alienated –on to me!
Arthur, thanks for your comment.
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. ~Adlai Stevenson, speech, Detroit, 1952
From day one the Republican controlled congress stated its number one goal was to make Obama a 1 term president to that end this congress has done nothing to help this country achieve any meaningful legislation including the jobs bill. I say let’s vote out all Republicans running this election. In 4 years if nothing gets done for the American people we vote out all Democrats & let the Republicans have chance to do what’s right for the country!
Paul, here is a interesting post ‘Obama´s Presidency – A Mexican Point of View’ at:
http://sandiegocaliforniapolitics.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/obama%C2%B4s-presidency-a-mexican-point-of-view/