Open Door Policy

Now that the flaks in Congress have opened the doors to your savings with big words to hide the final costs you will incur to bail out their buddies, it is time to look beyond and see that the real estate markets are not dead. A paltry few loans from folks who should not have gotton them from folks ill qualified to give them have secured all the press, but life goes on.

A look about shows that in my corners of the world, people are looking and showing. Arlington has 58 Open Houses this weekend; Belmont 42. Watertown has the doors ajar on 47 locales, and Medford, that hotspot of economic free wheeling, has 27. We need not tally the gross value of the houses here; suffice it is worthy of contemplation. Whether they sell is, of course, another matter.

Life is going on; it will go on regardless of bailouts and bank failures. Folks find a way. It is what makes life great.

If you were thinking of buying but have been scared away, come on, take a ride and visit a house. Talk to folks about it all. Gas is down,...you can afford the trip. I think it will calm your nerves -- and that of a lot of home owners.