Johnny Isakson: “I rise to commend the authors of this legislation on what they have done. This is an outstanding piece of work. I spent…”

“I rise to commend the authors of this legislation on what they have done. This is an outstanding piece of work. I spent 33 years of my life in the single family housing business. When I got started in 1967, I cut my teeth selling houses on FHA and VA loans. For all those years--and it has now been 40 years-- the FHA and VA have served the United States of America well. The first thing the American public needs to understand is the current mortgage crisis in America is not an FHA problem, from a standpoint of poor underwriting or poor loans. FHA does a good job of underwriting, a good job of servicing, a good job of appraising. They have good standards. The subprime market problem is an irresponsible lending practice in the conventional market, particularly when it comes to the underwriting. However, because that crisis does exist, FHA is going to be looked to as the savior in many cases. As conventional capital restricts and credit is reduced, it is going to be more important than ever for the FHA to be able to meet those demands. But during the deliberations of this and during the writing of this bill, Senator Shelby and Senator Dodd did some great things the American public needs to understand. They realized one of the problems in the subprime markets was they were starting to make 100 percent loans--interest only--for 3 or 4 years, with a bullet at the end.”