Would 30 percent down cure or kill the housing market?
Be forewarned, this is not another pretend debate over the future of the housing market.
As I type away, federal regulators and lobbyists for banks and mortgage companies are hashing out what the conventional mortgage will look like in the years ahead.
The handy acronym is QRM, for Qualified Residential Mortgage.
And the proposals so far are heavily weighted towards 20 percent down, with banking giant Wells Fargo pushing for an even higher hurdle of 30 percent.
Under the proposed rules, banks that cut mortgages that don't include these hefty down payments will retain some of the risk on their books when they go to sell these loans on the secondary market - that is if they still can find buyers.
Two agencies, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs, have until the end of April to roll out the new mortgage rules, mandated under last year's Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.
Depending on what the big boy and girls down in Washington come up with, we could be looking at the biggest game changer in the real estate since the subprime mortgage meltdown.
Still, one of the biggest questions about this push to bring back old fashioned down payments - ones large enough that potential borrowers must scrimp and save for years - is whether we can really turn back time.
For that's what these rules would do, putting up safeguards - and barriers, frankly - to homeownership not seen since the 1970s.
On the plus side, further tightening up credit may finish the job of bringing home prices back in line - a painful, messy process that began when the housing bubble burst.
The pool of eligible buyers will shrink even more, pushing down prices to match demand.
Let's face it, just about anyone who bought within or near the 128 market over the past decade probably overpaid to one degree or another, however great a deal they might have believed they cut.
If we end up with home prices that are roughly in line with median incomes, well I'm all for it.
But can we get there without killing the housing market and potentially derailing the economy again as well?
I am not so sure about that.
