Government's role in making homebuying less stressful

I don't know what got into me, but I bought my house last week. That is, I became the sole owner of a house I co-owned for eight years.

Ignoring headlines about predatory lenders, I proudly exposed my financial flank to strangers and a month later I was signing and initialing a stack of papers proffered by a chipper young woman who greeted me with a handful of extra pens.

Yes, my interest rate is fixed. And, yes, I remain slightly nervous, even though I actually do know what got into me: my children's sense of security, neighbors who help solidify that security and my treasured identity as a homeowner.

Did emotional attachments to the idea of a house blind me to the financial realities of paying for that house? The number of foreclosures nationwide might answer my own question. As people like me fill out papers and squint at the fine print, isn't someone, somewhere, helping ensure we stay out of trouble with all that credit checking and talk about "debt-to-income" ratio?

The U.S. House last week passed a bill designed to regulate mortgage lenders on a federal level, even though many states have some of these regulations in place. As with so many bills before Congress, the legislation seems to be codifying what many of us assume to be standard operating procedure, or at least ethical behavior. According to The Associated Press, HR 3915 would, in part:

• "Ban lenders from making loans that borrowers don't have the ability to repay." They don't already do this? What else are they doing with all those phone calls and computer scenarios?

• "Prohibit lenders from steering homeowners into refinanced mortgages that don't provide any benefit and create fines of triple the broker fee and costs." Ditto from above and hurray for the fines. Use the money to educate consumers by requiring a home-lending workshop for every prospective buyer.

• "Make Wall Street banks that package mortgage securities into investments liable for violations of lending laws." Accumulation of wealth at the expense of regular people trying to live regular lives is a huge part of the housing-market mess; that, and regular people not asking the right questions and lenders counting on their not asking the right questions.

• "Prohibit excessive fees for payoff information or late payments, the financing of points and fees and practices that increase the risk of foreclosure like balloon payments and encouraging borrowers to default." Can't argue with this, except: Why aren't such rules already in place everywhere?

• "Create a nationwide licensing system for mortgage brokers and bank loan officers called the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry." Licensing systems exist at state levels; why not hook them up on behalf of consumers?

Opponents of the bill say mucking with the industry will make it harder for people to buy or keep their houses because of the layered-on rules, which translate into added costs and redundancy between state and national laws. But, buying a house is mind-numbingly complicated for the consumer and lucrative for lenders and investors. That's not a good combination if you are a consumer. Even though we need to be responsible for our own financial decisions, government should look out for us through this emotional, complicated process.

My family is lucky. We live on a street of friendly people with gaggles of kids who run between houses, swap pajamas, books and cooties, and put on weekend plays in the backyards or basements. I don't mean to brag. I mean to thank my neighbors, especially the mom at the center of the block who always says, "Sure, your kids are welcome!" when we call, panicky, because we forgot about the early dismissal from school, or when the snow starts to fall and the schools start to close.

The block, the house, the fireplace, the heater in the bathroom that eats up too much electricity but toasts the space just right are part of my fabric, one that I can't imagine unraveling. But, even though I walked into homeownership with my eyes open, I suppose it could.

Without question, the downturn in the mortgage market made the home-buying process harder for people like me — gainfully employed citizens who have been doing the right thing. State and national governments need to be our advocate.