At least in residential lending the problem is that the FHA has specific rules on what it will and will not guarantee, distorting the market in favor of mostly single-use residential.

Really we should pull that and the mortgage deduction, because at this point both distort the market in favor of people who can afford to own property.

I suspect mortgage deduction will be gone in a few years. With Trump's tax reforms very few people take it, and so they won't be for it. If they eliminated it entirely now too many people remember it as good, but give it a few years to sink in that only the rich (or those living in California, which is itself a point against it elsewhere) take it, not you can get rid of it.

Let's hope!