President Barack Obama and the United States Congress believe that the best way to handle this economic crisis is to spend our way out of it. First and foremost on the list of sectors that they are giving aid to is housing. It has been a long-held belief that housing is the cornerstone to the American economy and to that end, the housing market has pretty much fallen apart over the past two years. And sadly, the end is seemingly nowhere in sight.

Consumer friendly home loan mortgage rates on a 30 year fixed mortgage for people with excellent credit now runs around 4.5%. That is considerably lower than anything we have seen up to this point. The hope is that people will step up and grab these great rates and by doing so, the economy will once again begin to grow as the housing market stabilizes.

There is a rather large problem with this scenario though. Housing prices for both new and existing homes have fallen off precipitously over the past three years. Just about all the gains that have been made over the past 10 years have been wiped out. On top of that, many banks are now leery to extend credit to anyone. With the growing unemployment rate, they too find themselves on a financial precipice that is fraught with record loan default rates.

It is a double barrel issue when you stop to think that first-time homebuyers are leery about purchasing a home that could further decrease in value. There are now millions of Americans that are upside down in their mortgages, meaning that they owe more than their homes are worth. On the other side of the coin many current homeowners have substandard loan to value numbers and therefore do not qualify for refinancing to take vantage of these attractive home loan mortgage rates.

The housing market will turn around, there is no question about that. Never, ever bet against the United States of America. If it is your wish to become a homeowner, or to refinance a current mortgage, then by all means do it. I have no doubt in my mind that there will be millions of Americans kicking themselves in a few short years because they did not take advantage of the current home loan mortgage rates.