Fannie and Freddie

My friend Mitch Ratcliffe has written a great blog post on the two pillars of home mortgage financing in the US, i.e. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As Mitch correctly notes, they have their flaws and warts. Remind me again sometime which entities don’t.

However, I was just in Halifax, NS, and Charlottetown, PEI, and I was struck by the fact that Canadians look, talk, dress and pretty much act like we do. They have just about the same wardrobes, cars, and gadgets. They travel more than we seem to because the weather at times leaves something to be desired, but one thing that stood out as being dramatically different in both places from what I typically see was the quality of the housing stock.

My day job for the past 30 years has been that of a real estate and development lawyer. Americans for the most part live in better quality homes than anyone on the globe.

My take is let’s fix the things that are broken, and perhaps tweak those entities that work.

But given the administrations success with some of their other programs, leave these two alone.

Comments

[Roland Tanglao]

Hi Buzz:

I don't know about the houses in the PEI and NS, but based on my experience the houses in the Toronto and Vancouver areas are comparable in quality to those in the USA.

Americans are richer than Canadian in terms of money and stuff though.

Cheers!
...Roland

[Jeremy C. Wright]

Product's the same, culture is much different than most Americans believe. So, selling to the clientele is different.

[Will Pate]

Buzz, next time you're in Charlottetown send this old fellow Zap Your Pram-er an email.