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<snip>That's WHY I don't like the feds running everything
- they do a poor job of things, on the whole
-- some agencies of the feds notably excepted, of course.
Think about it though, if the feds can determine whether you can buy a house or not,
that's a huge fulcrum to make you do any little old thing they want, when they want you to do it.
That doesn't strike me as liberty or freedom.
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Throwing the words "liberty" and "freedom" around in such a manner cheapens them.
It's an just an attempt to get a knee-jerk approval from certain audiences.
The feds are not determining whether you can buy a house or not.
It is the lender for the mortgage that makes that determination.
(Of course you can pay cash, do a 1031 exchange, etc. ... but then it is the seller)
Most all of the fed programs only set the limits on which mortgages
they will
buy back from the lender (bank, S&L, etc).
Yes, they do have a [sic fulcrum] lever on the lender,
but it's the lender that sets the boundaries on your mortgage.
I suspect your age is such that you may have bought a house
that entailed a FHA mortgage guarantee (to the lender).
If so, an appraiser would have visited the property and written a report
detailing where it did or did not met current minimum construction standards,
and set a maximum (insured loan) value on the property.
That appraisal was for you, the Buyer. It was then your "freedom" to decide
if you wanted to legally back away from the deal, or to proceed with closing.
This was a huge lever for the Buyer.
That program was folded into HUD, and so it is no longer so much in public view.
The FHA program has had an enormous impact on the quality of housing,
both single family and multi-family through out the US.
That federal program, alone, deserves more credit that you allow
in your blanket statements condemnation of federal agencies.
Maybe your apparent despair over loss of freedom and liberty is actually misdirected,
and should be towards the Wall Street banking and insurance industries.
But then that might make you want to join in a Occupy Wallstreet parade.