On Monday, AIG announced that it would sell foreign life insurance business Alico to MetLife (MET, Fortune 500) for $15.5 billion. Last week, AIG said it reached an agreement to sell Asian life insurance giant AIA for $35.5 billion.

That’s $51 billion that AIG said will eventually be used to pay down its debt to the government. The two sales mark the most significant progress that AIG has made to-date in its efforts to repay its bailout, which is worth up to $182 billion.

Taxpayers won’t get their money back overnight. The sales still need to be completed, and AIG has said that more than $19 billion will come over time from proceeds generated by sales of securities.

So far, the government has given AIG $136.5 billion, of which the insurer owes $102 billion. But AIG’s debt total will be cut in half after the insurer turns over the $51 billion it secured from the Alico and AIA sales.

So if all these TARP funds are being re-paid, why is everyone so focused on this part of the ‘big government bail-out’? Surely everyone should be more concerned about the big government bail outs that will never be re-paid?

Surely this is good news for everyone including the housing markets?