Local real estate agents and mortgage brokers said Monday that the $700 billion bailout proposed over the weekend will have little positive effect on North County home buyers.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan will buy mortgage-backed securities from worrying investors and wobbling banks as booming foreclosure rates have seriously devalued the assets.

Some North Countians said they were unsupportive of the plan.

Don Stephensen started looking for a home in Fallbrook or Temecula seven months ago. But a slowdown at his employer, a sheet metal fabricator, has left him worried and delayed his plans to buy a home, he said. The bailout will not help fulfill Stephensen's dream of owning his first home. "We're bailing out the rich, that's the way I hear it," he said. "There's no middle-class income anymore. There's just the low and the rich."

For $700 billion, the government hopes to ease concerns in the troubled financial sector by buying mortgage-backed securities, which have seen values tumble and brought about a reluctance among banks to lend money.

However, the plan will not make it easier to secure a mortgage but could prevent lending from getting even more scarce, said James Hamilton, an economics professor at UC San Diego.

"This is trying to prevent a profound deterioration rather than fix the problems that were here three months ago," Hamilton said. "Success at this point is preventing further financial collapse. … It won't bring back private home lending."

Stephensen's concerns were echoed by Beth Taylor, who recently bought a home in Encinitas.

Both said they were concerned the bailout rewarded those who took too many risks and are now punishing average taxpayers who were responsible in buying a home they could afford.

"I don't think it's something I should pay for," said Taylor, a 35-year-old who bought a house with her military husband four months ago. "I'm not comfortable with the government bailing these people out when we have so much debt to begin with. I don't know how that fixes it. It's an apparition. It's a short-term fix that only makes a long-term problem worse."

Some housing analysts said homeowners have reason to be upset.

"When you have trillions of dollars invested and people don't even know what they own, there's something wrong," said Mark Goldman, a real estate lecturer at San Diego State University. "And now they're throwing money at the people who caused this mess in the first place. This is insane."

Like Taylor, Goldman said the government should focus on fixing the long-term health of the capital markets rather than look for a short-term fix.

If anything, the bailout might have a minor effect on interest rates based on how investors react. On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 372 points, while concerns arose that the bailout would devalue the dollar.

Typically, a decline in the stock market translates into lower interest rates on mortgages, because investors are more comfortable putting money into bonds than stocks. However, mortgage bonds, which dictate interest rates, were volatile all day based on general malaise over the financial sector.

Several local real estate brokers said the bailout might have been necessary, but was broadly constructed and needed more oversight on how the money is spent.

"The secretary of Treasury is going to be given unlimited power," said Victoria Johnson, president of a mortgage brokerage in San Diego. "No court, no legislative body can question his actions, not even the president. I just can't even understand it."

Contact staff writer Zach Fox at (760) 740-5412 or zfox@nctimes.com. Read his blog, "On the Realside," at nctimes.com/blogs/minding_your_business.