A reduction in the mortgage insurance premiums for FHA loans, worth an estimated $900 a year to new homebuyers, is one of the most aggressive policy changes that the president can make unilaterally. It doesn’t sound like much.

Susan Wachter, professor of real estate at the Wharton School, says it will have a big impact for the hundreds of thousands of households projected to take advantage of the program. But its broader economic impacts will be limited, in part because the housing market isn’t being held back by the cost of funding, but by the difficulty of getting a loan in the first place.

CoreLogic chief economist Sam Khater says it’ll take more than legislative action to spark a real recovery in the housing market. More people will need to be working good jobs for good pay, and wages will need to rise first.