It seems that the housing market decline is no respecter of persons.  People who are in high positions of power and authority as well as people who have plenty of money are running into the same problem the rest of us have — they can’t sell their homes.

Two recent articles help to highlight this situation:

evidently the Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) can’t get her house sold even after dropping the price $100,000.  So she has decided to rent it out until the market turns around.  My only hope is that she lets the rest of us know when that happens.  I know a lot of people who would love to sell their home “when the market turns around”. When?

this is a story about homes in the $1,000,000 and more category in the DC Metro area that are really having a tough time of it.  Part of the challenge with selling homes in this price range is the mortgage situation.  Jumbo loans are hard to come by and the interest rates and credit requirements are prohibitive.  Not everybody has the actual cash to plunk down on these homes and a lot more have their money tied up in the stock market which has seen a huge decrease over the past couple of years.

I don’t know about you but I take a small bit of comfort in knowing that even if you have lots of money and a great, high profile job (note: Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner can’t sell his place either) it’s just as hard to sell your home as it is for the rest of us.  Hopefully, they’ll have some empathy for the “little guy” and get this economy back on track knowing that as soon as they do they’ll be able to sell their homes.  This might be a little bit of “enlightened self interest”.  You don’t need an expensive lobbyist to tell you the real estate market is in the tank when you can’t sell your own home!