Maggie's Farm

Texan's right.
Ownership isn't for everybody. The 'dream' is one thing - the reality quite another.

Good friend of mine is a real estate lawyer/mortgage broker and has often counseled buyers OUT of purchasing homes. She's got a good eye for troubled couples or people who are misspending their income.

She'll do the deal if they insist, but she does make sure they understand the full scope of what they are getting into. You don't just buy something because everyone else has 'it'.

The "Dream" of owning should be discussed more along the lines of the responsibility of owning.

My son wants to buy a dog when he becomes senior in college. We have told him, based on his unwillingness to feed or walk the current 'family' animal, it would be a poor idea. He still doesn't understand the connection between the fun he has with the dog, and the fact the dog is well-cared for.
Many people view owning a home the same way. It would be a great thing to own - and indeed it is. But when the sometimes harsh reality of actually caring for a home becomes apparent, people lose the connection they once felt.

I will add that I think the article itself misses the point.

First of all, if these agencies are suddenly 'successful', then why shutter them? While they are making paper profits, nobody has questioned what will happen when the current bubble bursts (as it will, inevitably, when rates rise). Perhaps this is the reason - both agencies are close to 'paying off' their loans, better to shutter them and call it a win.
Second, there is every reason to blame the banks and government for the culture of ownership. They promoted it, and people who fell for it were silly to think just owning a home was some kind of special 'benefit'. They got sucked into a clear game of 'greater fool' and they were the fools. Why try to diminish the fault, as this article attempts to do?
Third, the issue isn't one of misguided culture - ownership IS GOOD. When the people doing the owning are motivated and fully invested. The problem, as pointed out in my second paragraph above, is that the issue was NOT culture, but misapplication of culture. This happens all the time:
"America, love it or leave it" is just as detrimental as the current "America, we're always wrong and our president is sorry" mentality.

The truth always lies somewhere in between. In this particular case, the reality is that the rules for housing purchase were perfectly acceptable at the time of the bubble, but the government simply made purchase too easy with low interest rates and subsidized homes.

Fannie and Freddie are 'profitable', in a sense. Mainly because the Fed is hanging on to tons of useless claims to real estate. So the profits Fannie and Freddie are seeing are really being lost over at the Fed.

If all that real estate were accounted for properly, people wouldn't be talking about how profitable these agencies really were, but how the bookkeeping is a mess.