In addition to addressing the crisis at hand, the NAHB report to President-elect Obama lays out a broad range of policies — in housing finance, tax policy, minority homeownership, energy, land use and more — that will be needed to restore the health of the nation’s home building industry over the longer term.

“As the Administration considers changes to the U.S. housing finance system, NAHB urges it to consider the following:

• FHA should be restructured as an independent government corporation, within HUD and separate from Ginnie Mae, that would continue its current mission of supporting liquidity, innovation and continuity in the housing finance markets by providing mortgage insurance backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
  
  
• FHA should be freed from federal government constraints on hiring, personnel management and procurement, and should have flexibility to develop and modify programs to react promptly to market developments and needs.”

View the full article in NBN.