NYPost-
President Obama has finally moved to replace a little-known but powerful Washington bureaucrat who has stood in the way of important efforts to end America’s foreclosure crisis. The President’s decision is welcome — but further action is needed, right away, to provide the swift and fair relief homeowners need.
Since 2009, Edward DeMarco has served as acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He should have been a critical figure in setting policy to get us out of the foreclosure crisis. Instead, DeMarco’s most notable achievement has been blocking programs to help struggling homeowners.
It has been more than five years since the housing bubble burst, but millions of Americans are still fighting to keep their homes. In the fourth quarter of 2012, 10.4 million properties — 21.5% of all homes with mortgages — had “negative equity,” owing more on their mortgages than their properties were worth. Right now, these homeowners are trapped under a $628 billion mountain of negative equity.