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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Although it is sometimes hard for community developers to think about topics as seemingly abstract as the future of secondary mortgage markets when they have so many pressing matters to deal with, few other issues will have so profound an effect on housing and neighborhoods writes professor Dan Immergluck in a blog published by the National Housing Institute. The latest proposal to address the mortgage market is the Johnson-Crapo bill, which relies primarily on private risk capital to fund mortgages and minimizes the role of the public sector in the funding process. Many inside-the-beltway think tanks and advocacy groups appear to support Johnson-Crapo, in part because the bill calls for some modest funding streams for affordable housing and community development. However, opposition from the libertarian right, led by House Republican Jeb Henserling, argues for a system in which the private sector takes all of the gains but also accepts the full losses. Immergluck, however, believes that this is naïve. The housing market is too big—and intertwined with the broader economy—to fail, he argues. If it collapses, the federal government will, and should, step in.
