The Hill News

We all know the depressing statistics - housing prices have fallen 33 percent since the housing bubble burst in 2008. This is an even greater decline than the drop in market value during the height of the Great Depression. And while house prices continue their slide, four out of five new mortgages require a down payment of at least 20 percent, putting home ownership out of the reach of most Americans. Almost five million households are either in foreclosure proceedings or are perilously close.

To address this problem, United States Senators Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, recently proposed legislation (S.1746) that is a step in the right direction. But it doesn’t go far enough, and the benefits are much too limited to attract the volume of foreign investors needed to make a real dent in the crisis.

The problem is that the Schumer-Lee bill fails to award what foreign national investors want: permanent residence st! atus. Instead, their proposal would bestow a special three-year, renewable, temporary visa permitting the investor and his immediate family to reside in the United States so long as he purchases a residential property for at least $500,000 in cash and agrees to live in it for at least 180 days each year.

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