FHA to encourage flipping

The Federal Housing Administration is behaving more and more like the financial institutions that got us into this mess:

Starting today home "Flippers" are now welcome at the FHA.

That's right, with a glut of foreclosures plaguing the nation's neighborhoods, the FHA is temporarily removing restrictions on investors who buy and sell homes within 90 days.

It's just for one year, but Flippers are no longer persona non-grata with the government.

"FHA borrowers, because of the restrictions we are now lifting, have often been shut out from buying affordable properties," FHA Commissioner David Stevens wrote in a statement last month. "This action will enable our borrowers, especially first-time buyers, to take advantage of this opportunity."

So the FHA wants to encourage flipping and turn first-time buyers, who are already getting a tax break, into new real estate speculators? Nope, they just want to get as many foreclosed properties as possible off the market. This opens up a whole new bundle of buyers to current real estate investors who previously couldn't flip the home to a low-income borrower.