This email was sent to the President of the National Association of Realtors, Charles McMillan.
Dear Charles,
I appreciate all you and our NAR folks do. However, NAR is missing a huge opportunity to help struggling Military Families while helping our membership. The fact is, our company has been beating the drum on this and have basically been ignored by our attempts to discuss with anyone with clout in NAR, or our local associations.
Here is the situation. Military Families are facing foreclosure at approximately 4 times the national rate. Why? Because they serve! They buy homes for the same reasons we all do but when handed PCS orders, they have no choice but to move. In the past, it could be difficult, but the losses were nothing like what is experienced in this market. Many will NEVER recover from the financial blow. The Congress’ feeble attempts to address this have loopholes so big you drive an aircraft carrier through them. After all of the caveats, they are basically meaningless to 90% or more of the folks in trouble.
If you think this is an exaggeration, I would encourage you to review the link below where we have documented hundreds of families in dire straits.
http://vrsam.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=Support&action=display&num=1193804319
Attached is a proposal we floated well before the melt down that is still valid. It basically proposes an immediate tax credit for Military Families who have lost or losing money on a house due to a PCS. This would include losses on sales and cash flow losses on when they have to rent.
The long term solution also proposed for Career Military Families mirrors that which is already available to their federal counterparts in the NCIS, CIA, FBI, and other agencies. You and I are both former military members. Does it make any sense to you that other federal employees have these benefits, but those on the pointy end of the spear are left hanging by their employer, the US government? Many will immediately claim that it is too expensive. That view is extremely short sighted and we offer a number of offsets that make perfect sense in the attachment.
Thus far, neither of your two immediate predecessors took the time to respond to my thoughts. I am asking you to take a serious look at this proposal. It makes sense for the government and taxpayers, sense for NAR to support it, and you can bet, it makes sense to our patriots in uniform. Please, let’s use NAR’s considerable clout with our elected officials to get this fixed!
I am in the DC area, available to meet or talk with anyone on very short notice.
Sincerely,
Joe Gladden, Captain, USN, retired, Realtor |