A new year, and a new president and VP. I cannot imagine leading the country in such challenging times as these. Sure, there's a horrible pandemic, and we need to find a cure for it or at least get it under control, but there's a huge economic problem facing us due to the virus. Hundreds of thousands of businesses have closed across the nation, and the numbers will be grim this year as many file bankruptcy.

Let's step back to January 2009, when Barack Obama became the country's 44th president. The United States had nearly collapsed due to bank fraud and a recession that had boiled up the previous year, and Obama had to basically rescue the country from bankruptcy. Working both sides of the aisle, he got the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—the biggest economic stimulus package this country had ever seen—passed and signed a month after he took office. By the time he left office eight years later, the U.S. economy had gained 11.6 million jobs and home prices rose 20% (but the home-ownership rate hit the lowest point in half a century). For more statistical indicators of Obama's eight years in office, visit: factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers

When people lost their homes in the aftermath of the Great Recession, a number of full-time Realtors became experts in short sales. In fact, those specializing in short sales were worth their weight in gold!

A short sale is when a homeowner who is behind in payments and facing foreclosure sells their home, with the bank's permission, at a price that is less than what they owe on their mortgage. It was a total nightmare for us professionals as well as homeowners in financial distress because there was no guarantee you'd ever be able to speak to someone at the bank holding the note on the home. And when you did track a representative down, they'd be gone a week later. It became almost a science for us to get a homeowner through the process before the sheriff came knocking at their door demanding they leave because the bank had taken back the home in the formal foreclosure process.

There was a bad after-effect once a homeowner completed a successful short sale of their property. Simply, they would have a noticeably big stain on their credit rating for a long time, which would make it impossible for them to buy a home again. Time passed and several years later, we saw lenders changing credit requirements and rules to bring in new customers for home mortgage loans. A bad economy and people's bad credit records were why home ownership hit such a low rate during Obama's tenure in the White House. According to chicagofed.org, there were approximately 3.8 million foreclosures from 2007-2010 in this country.

Biden and Harris are facing COVID-caused economic chaos as they sit in their newly sanitized offices with their plans to help us all see our way to national prosperity again. My prayers are with them.