US Housing Policy in the Age of Obama: From Crisis to Stasis

This policy review assesses the condition of the housing sector in the United States nearly five years after the nation's housing bubble collapsed in 2007, triggering the nation's worst financial crisis and economic recession since the 1930s. The paper reviews key trends in housing construction, sales, prices, and mortgage arrears and foreclosure, and it examines trends in housing affordability. The paper then assesses the most important housing policies of the Obama administration, focusing first on those that address the mortgage foreclosure crisis, then on those relating to other policy priorities. The paper highlights some of the shortcomings in the design of the administration's programmes, and the inability of the administration to take additional measures to address the nation's housing problems after the Republicans gained control of Congress in the elections of 2010.