I've been talking to many potential home sellers in North Carolina, and I'm finding that a lot of them share a common complaint: they're having trouble qualifying for bridge loans to enable them to buy another home while their existing homes are still for sale.

I remember in the go-go '90's having lenders approve my wife and me for $300,00 or $400,000 mortgages, and no hassles at all getting a bridge loan to carry us through until our old home sold.

Of course, we didn't buy any $400,000 homes. We were much too frugal to do that. But the folks I'm talking to in North Carolina aren't spendthrifts, either. They just need some flexibility from lenders to get the financing they need to sell their homes.

If GM can get billions, how about the housing industry? At least we're not going to go bankrupt next year after taking billions from the government.

From what I hear, things aren't much better in Kentucky, either.