My remarks today will focus on the next steps – efforts to increase demand for homes, efforts aimed at further reducing preventable foreclosures, and efforts aimed at limiting the costs imposed on households and communities by foreclosures that cannot be avoided. Both the government and the private sector have important roles in these efforts.
These suggestions and recommendations are my opinion alone and do not reflect the views of other members of the Federal Reserve Board or any other government entity. The current weakness in housing markets Housing activity remains extraordinarily weak. Sales of new and existing homes have been running at a pace that is 60 percent of that seen at the peak in 2005.