NEW YORK CITY-Just one short week ago, President Barack Obama called for “no more red tape” and “no more runaround” from the banks, offering homeowners the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgages by refinancing at historically low rates. But with mortgage origination and home prices nearing bottom, the commercial real estate industry is divided over whether the President’s plan and new Financial Fraud Task Force will help—or hurt—the already troubled housing market.

“To get into these massive banking crises and massive recessions, the typical answer is to re-inflate the economy, which is what they are doing, and there’s noting wrong with that until a point,” says Joel Ross, president of New York City-based Citadel Realty Advisors and GlobeSt.com blogger. “At some point, you lose control of it potentially. If you keep re-inflating and re-inflating for too long, it feeds on itself.”

As the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate loan continues to dip below 4%, home affordability is high, but the ability to obtain or refinance a mortgage remains tight. According to a Mortgage Bankers Association survey for the week ending Jan. 20, mortgage applications decreased by 5%, a sharp dip from a 4.5% uptick directly after the holidays. The survey—which covers over 75% of all US retail mortgage banking applications—shows for the second consecutive time, mortgage applications declined again by 2.9%.