President Obama has promised to help homeowners stay in their homes and for the first time in a long while it seems the President cares about the average American. There are hopeful ideas such as reworking the Hope for Homeowners program, force banks to modify loans if they accepted taxpayer money, and give bankruptcy judges the right to modify mortgages. These are some very good ideas, what do you think?

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Short story: bought house in 2002, refinanced with ARM in 2004. Tried to start business and took out 2nd using all equity. Business failed, all equity and savings gone. KABOOM. My fault, my responsibilty.

Having said this, I would like to stay in my home. As I view it, this crisis has two sides; many people are in homes they should never have been able to afford in the first place AND the financial institutions are going through a hellacious crisis of their own; foreclosures out of control and getting properties back that they have no hope of selling for what they are owed. They are in the loan business; NOT the real estate business.

I like the concept of forcing the lenders into loan modifications but there must be balance. They should not be forced to bite the bullet for people like me. Wouldn't it make sense to simply lengthen the loan period to 40 or even 50 years with the lowest possible FIXED rate? This would put the monthly payments back within the realm of possibility for many people while ensurng continued payments for the lenders.

I know it's probably not that simple, but wouldn't it be a start?