Click to enlarge

If swing state voters make housing issues their only priority, Gov. Mitt Romney will pick up the majority of Electoral College votes in those states – but President Barack Obama will still have enough votes nationwide to win the election, according to an analysis from RealtyTrac.

RealtyTrac, a distressed listings data provider, crunched the numbers to see which candidate would prevail among real estate voters living in eight toss-up states: Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada and New Hampshire. The firm compared the performance of five housing metrics – average home prices, unemployment rates, foreclosure inventory, foreclosure starts and share of distressed sales – between September 2008 and September 2012. [more]

From the October issue: Call it the political elephant in the room: 1.2 million families across the country are now at some stage of foreclosure, 3.8 million homeowners have been foreclosed upon since September 2008, 11.4 million are underwater on their mortgages, $6.5 trillion in home equity has been lost by owners since 2005 and home building and sales are intimately linked with job creation, yet the subject of housing policy was virtually a no-show in either the Democratic or Republican conventions or in the party platforms.

Given the huge impact that the housing and mortgage crashes have had on millions of voters and workers, you would think housing would have been high on both parties’ priority lists. They’d say: Okay, here’s how we’re going to turn this crucially important situation around — getting builders building again to pre-boom historical levels, helping out the good folks who paid their loans on time even when underwater, plus making sure banks make loans available to credit-worthy buyers who want a mortgage rather than penalizing them for the banks’ past mistakes. [more]

From left: Governor Mitt Romney, a house and President Barack Obama

While the second presidential debate did not touch specifically on housing, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney did mention capping itemized tax deductions — of which the mortgage deduction is one of the most significant — at $25,000 per household, in his outline of his tax policy. But Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist, writes, in a recent column for Forbes, that this policy would disproportionately hurt the middle class. [more]

From left: Pres. Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney

Asking prices in six of seven swing states have increased year-over-year, Trulia reported, adding that this could be good news for President Obama. The swing states were designated by political data site RealClearPolitics.com.

Two such states, Nevada and Florida — the center of the foreclosure crisis — have seen 7 and 6.9 percent year-over-year increases in asking prices, respectively. [more]

The candidates at the Denver debate

Last night, as the candidates faced off in the first presidential debate, The Real Deal was taking notes on candidates’ positions on mortgages, the housing industry, taxes, and whether Donald Trump qualifies as a small business.

President Barack Obama said raising taxes on the top 3 percent of businesses would spur growth, without hurting education funding. Meanwhile, the former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said raising taxes on that group would kill job growth. The candidates also sparred on the merits of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a law enacted by the Obama administration in response to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the country’s ensuing financial troubles.  [more]

Gov. Mitt Romney

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney suggested cutting the mortgage interest tax deductions yesterday, on the eve of the first debate between Romney and President Barack Obama.

The suggested cut is part of his plan to cut taxes across the board by 20 percent, but Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and running mate Paul Ryan have shied away from giving details on which deductions they would eliminate in order to cut taxes so significantly. [more]

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

Banks have reaped enormous profits since the Federal Reserve announced its third and latest round of quantitative easing last month  — speaking debate over the Fed’s recent agreement to purchase $40 billion in mortgage bonds a month.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who negotiated QE3, defended his plan on Monday following critiques from Gov. Mitt Romney and others that the Fed was keeping interest rates “artificially low. ” Bernanke said that QE3 would not result in long-term inflation. [more]

Mitt Romney

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney quietly issued a white paper on his housing policy on Friday, though it was overshadowed bythe much-anticipated release of his 2011 tax return.

The seven-page white paper says the Romney-Ryan plan will “end the housing crisis” and reduce the “out-sized” government role in the housing market. However, it includes very few details on how the Republican nominee intends to accomplish his plan, most of which was outlined earlier this month in a bullet-point list on his website. [more]

President Obama

Mitt Romney has called for a less “government-centric approach” to fixing the housing crisis. Now, a new study shows President Barack Obama’s foreclosure rescue program is having a limited impact on distressed borrowers.

Of the 5.66 million distressed borrowers that have modified their mortgages over the last five years just 1.04 million did so through the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, according to a study by Hope Now cited by the Los Angeles Times. The remaining homeowners modified with loans not offered by the program. [more]

The swing states most crucial to the outcome of the presidential election are also among the states most affected by the foreclosure crisis. But CNBC reported today on “Power Lunch” that the issue has largely been ignored by the candidates (see video after the jump).

Mitt Romney hasn’t discussed the issue extensively since visiting Florida in January and backtracking on his initial statements that the best cure for widespread foreclosures is to let them run their course. Still, Barack Obama’s campaign is using that quote in spanish language ads in several of the hardest-hit swing states. [more]