thank you. thank you, mr. chair. >> the time of the gentleman is expired. the gentleman from minnesota, mr. ellison, is recognized for the remaining time. the gentleman needs to turn his microphone on. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman bernanke, thank you for coming. i just want to know your views on what more do you think could be done to try to help the housing market get back on track? let me just observe that about 60% of all the mortgages are either owned or backed by, you know, the gses and perhaps, you know, some people have proposed that we write those down, the ones we can write down, and yet

they haven't been. and there's some resistance to that. is that a feasible solution? and if not, you know, what other ideas do you have regarding the housing market? because it seems like that is the one persistent thing that seems to be dragging the economy down. and it's not just construction jobs. i mean, it's just, you know, it's a loss of equity. it's a general prevailing sort of diminishment of demand, as i see it. let me hand it over to you. that's actually going to be my only question. >> as you may know, congressman, the federal reserve put out a white paper recently that had an analytical discussion of many options without makes recommendations. a whole range of issues, gses have actually addressed some of them to some extent. one problem is getting the excess supply of housing off the market, so to speak. and one way to do that is the convert reo housing into rental housing. gses have a pilot program to do

that, and we've discussed some of the issues related to that in our white paper. there's also, for also to get rid of dilapidated or uninhabitable housing, land banks and similar institutions are a useful tool, potentially. we also consider -- we have not taken a position, and there certainly is no official position on principal reduction, but we have looked at various alternatives to foreclosure, including, for example, deed in lieu or short sales, which allow people to get out of the house, you know, and to, and for the bank to avoid the foreclosure process. i guess a final area where we have a bit of a discussion is about availability or excess to mortgage credit, which is now very, very tight. and one of our recommendations was that the gses look at their policies regarding representations is warranties to provide greater assurance to originators that their loans would not be returned to them. gses are looking at that.

that's a positive development. another way to improve originations is to reduce uncertainty about servicing obligations and between the various agreements that have occurred recently and the fed's cease and desist orders, current discussions about national servicing standards and the like, i think some of that uncertainty is being removed. there's a whole variety of things that can be done. none of them as a silver bullet, but many of them can be helpful. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> time of the gentleman has been yielded back. chairman bernanke, we thank you for your testimony today. the chair notes that some members may have additional questions for chairman bernanke, which they may wish to submit in writing. without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 30 days for members to submit written questions to the witness and to place responses in the record. this hearing is adjourned. >> thank you.