Real Estate Industry in Need of Real Innovation

The real estate market and the overall real estate industry are in dire need of new business and cost strategies to positively shift consumer confidence and affordability factors enough to stimulate and sustain growth within this pillar of the overall U.S. economy.

With the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit, new home sales have collapsed. Mortgage underwriting standards are an increasingly small and faster moving target to hit. Rates can drop to 2 percent, but if only a tiny pool of consumers qualify for a mortgage, the cheap money doesn't do much good. Currently, 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages for the most qualified buyers are in the mid-3 percent range and 30-year-fixed-rate programs are in the mid-4 percent range ... which just sounds extraordinary as I type it out.

It doesn't help that mortgage professionals are not trusted by the general public, period, as they've been painted as financial molesters by the media and most everyone else, fairly or not.

What needs to change?