All this week I am in Washington DC at the National Association of Realtors® Midyear Legislative Meetings.  I just came from the Regulatory Issues Forum where a panel discussed whether regulatory solutions were helping to serve the mortgage crisis.

A member of the audience, a mortgage representative from Virginia, raised two very important points.  One was the mortgage crisis was being "over-medicated," as she put it.  There seems to be no clearing house or chief pharmacist to oversee all the medications that were being prescribed.  She asked that someone create open communication about the solutions being discussed.  A dynamite idea.

Her second point was that as a mortgage rep she pulls a lot of credit reports, and virtually every day she sees one with horrible errors that clients just don't have time (or the understanding) to fix.  The Byzantine method of credit report correction has to be changed.  One of the panelists observed that it was not unlike the companies that rate companies (like the bond-rating companies) - a serious conflict of interest. 

Take away this practical advice: if you're thinking of buying a home soon (and you should be, given the inventory and interest rates), check your credit report and fix it if necessary.  Otherwise, all the mortgages that are now based on credit-worthiness (that includes virtually all of them, including FHA), will be more expensive for you.  Do it today!

More from Washington tomorrow.