Kona Kohala Blog

I have had the misfortune of working with Fannie Mae on a FHA foreclosure property for the past two weeks.  After this short reintroduction to the federal government I am more sure than ever that this is not who should run our health plan or anything else, for that matter.

This is the most convoluted and backwards organization (I use that term loosely) I have worked with in 14 years of real estate.  In the early 70's I was a contractor with Tracor Systems working on defense projects for the pentagon.  Nothing has changed in the way our government does business since then.  In 37 years, nothing has changed.

All signatures to this purchase must be on the same original document and all must be in "blue ink".  I work in Hawaii, my clients are in Fresno and the husband is on a business trip.  Not normally a problem but once you are notified that FHA has accepted your offer (which they do at their pace) you then have two (2) business days to have the blue signatures of all parties on the original only in their hands along with a copy of a cashiers check for the deposit.  This took some serious scrambling on the part of my clients.

Normally, when a change is made on a contract for real estate, it's done in the form of a counter offer, no one actually marks up a contract, you submit a new clean one.  Not with FHA, my contract looked like a wall in the garment district in LA with all the strike outs, added numbers and language, etc.  What a mess and they want to run our health insurance.

Do NOT, whatever happens, do NOT allow our government to operate anything that has any importance in your life.  I was in the militarty for 10 years and a government contractor for 3 years after that.  I can tell you that's a mess but no one else can run a national defense so it's a mess we have to live with but let's not give them any more to do.  Believe me, they can't do the jobs they already have properly so let's not add to that confusion.