Technology Slice Blog

Real Estate Investors Defend Themselves - They have surpassed lawyers and repo-men as the most vilified professionals on the planet. Thanks to the unprecedented real estate crash, "investors" are now the bad guys. During the housing boom, they canoodled with lenders to lever themselves to the hilt, and consequently fueled home prices to levels so unsustainable that the market came crashing down. Never does the President, the Treasury secretary, or the HUD secretary announce a new element to the Administration's multi-billion dollar housing bailout, without making clear that investors need not apply. Get over it. That's all I, and plenty of qualified real estate investors, have to say. That was then; this is now, and real estate investors may be our only ticket out of the housing crisis. "If you want to stabilize the housing market, you have to encourage investors," says hedge fund manager Aaron Edelheit. "The quicker you can end the foreclosure...