How to Solve the Housing Crisis? - Video

Gary Shilling, economist and president of A. Gary Shilling and Co., shown here in a video that is hosted by Yahoo Finance, is explaining a method he thinks will solve the housing crisis. Mr. Shilling believes that opening the gates to a flood of immigrants will bring in people who can afford to buy up the current supply of homes that are for sale. What do you think?



My main question is where are all of these immigrants going to find jobs? Now that the economy is in such tough shape, I doubt that these jobs that Mr. Shilling claims are available in the tech industry are really still waiting to be filled.

Also, what would that many new tech workers do to the job prospects of the tech industry? If you glut the tech market with highly skilled workers, the salary level of those jobs would fall dramatically. You may end up creating more foreclosures if tech salaries suddenly drop precipitously.

What if far too many of these immigrants decide to rent a home instead of buy? There is no guarantee that these immigrants will buy a home, especially if they are only on H1-B visas, which means they are temporary workers.

If many of these new immigrants are from Asia, that could produce another problem because any Realtor will tell you that Asian immigrants prefer to buy new homes rather than used ones. What is to prevent these immigrants from building a new home rather than buying a home that is already built and for sale?

That could help the builders but would do nothing to soak up all of those homes out there that are still for sale.

Mr. Shilling's idea could be creating even greater problems in the economy than the ones that already exist. But, at least Mr. Shilling is thinking,

Bob Roscoe, Mortgage Marketing Associates, Minneapolis, Minnesota
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