Moody's thinks house prices will bottom in early 2009

Unsold inventory already on the market is 2.6% or 2.1 million vacant, unsold homes, which is the highest level since World War II. In the quarter century between the early 1980s and the mid-2000s, the average was 1.7%, which means the vacant excess inventory that can be tied to this housing recession is about 750,000 homes, Moody's estimates.

The subprime financial shock is not over and Moody's still expects a surge in foreclosures. Money for mortgages is still extremely tight. Prior to the mortgage mess, mortgage bonds issued totaled $1 trillion annually. During the third quarter, only $300 billion were issued, and so far in the fourth quarter, this bond level appears to be holding steady.

Moody's says its biggest concern is that "sliding house prices and eroding mortgage quality will reignite another wave of global financial turmoil. The ramifications of this for the economy, and thus housing, would be overwhelming." Moody's believes the losses for financial institutions will be much higher than those already taken, and it expects those write-downs "have fallen well-short of what they ultimately will have to realize."

So for those of you opposed to even the minor steps the Bush administration is taking to try to stop this free fall, think carefully. While we may be in a housing recession now heading to a housing crash, what situation will we be in if we do nothing and let this mess erode our economic stability even further?

Yes, you may think it's not fair to help those who took bad financial risks, but I can assure they're not getting an easy ride with the bailout. It will be tough to qualify and they won't be getting a free ride. People complaining that they would have taken the same risks and bought a larger home if they knew they could count on a government bailout, don't really understand what's at stake here. Most of these people who are getting help now bought at the peak of this housing bubble and many are looking at house prices that have dropped 10% to 30% below what they paid.

If we don't try to at least stall some of the foreclosures with an interest rate freeze, these predictions from Moody's will look mild compared to what might be on the horizon if something isn't done to soften the blow. Moody's does count on steps already announced by the Federal Reserve and the Bush Administration to be implemented successfully for this call of a bottom to be the most likely scenario. Do we really want to push this economy into a full depression?

Lita Epstein has written more than 20 books including "The 250 Questions You Should Ask to Avoid Foreclosure" and the "Complete Idiot's Guide to the Federal Reserve.