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Old 09-18-2015, 11:14 AM
 
Location: Barrington
63,919 posts, read 46,731,596 times
Reputation: 20674

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry View Post
If government didn't get involved in lowering the standards we wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place.

The Texas experience presents an important case study, in part because of a unique state law. Texas is the only state with a regulation limiting home equity borrowing. After purchase, mortgage debt along with any new borrowing—including home equity loans—cannot exceed 80 percent of a home’s market value unless the new debt funds home improvements.

1997:
Texas voters passed a constitutional amendment allowing closed-end home equity loans effective Jan. 1, 1998. It stipulated that a home equity loan plus the primary mortgage be less than 80 percent of the value of the home.

https://www.dallasfed.org/assets/doc...3/swe1303b.pdf

What gives? I'm in Texas and I received a mortgage with 5 percent down in 2003. Something in the wording about closed end?

i am not in Texas. As I understand it, Texas has a history of restricting home equity loans, not new purchase loans.

There's a difference between a home improvement and a home equity loan.

As I understand it, Texas historically allowed home improvement loans and did not impose a LTV ratio. These loans gave the lender the right to pursue a deficiency judgment against the borrower, when warranted.

The Texas amendment enabled home equity loans, the proceeds of which may be used for any purpose. These loans were and presumable remain subject to 80/20 LTV.

My point was and remains, Texas law curtailed borrower's ability to use their home equity as an ATM to live beyond their means.
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Old 09-18-2015, 11:19 AM
 
Location: the very edge of the continent
89,000 posts, read 44,813,405 times
Reputation: 13699
Quote:
"Among the most controversial of the products is a 3%-down loan that caused an uproar within Fannie Mae when it was introduced in the mid-1990s. Some senior executives, including the company's chief credit officer at the time, were opposed to the loans, in large part because a Fannie Mae experiment with 5%-down loans in Texas in the early 1980s was disastrous, with one in four borrowers defaulting.

Robert Levin, a Fannie Mae executive vice president who helped pioneer the 3%-down loans, recalls angry phone calls from regional executives who feared the loans were too risky. "People were saying, 'What are you doing? Nobody has ever been successful at this in the history of mankind!'"
Why Calls Are Escalating to Clip Fannie Mae's, Freddie Mac's Wings - WSJ
July 14, 2000

How very prescient.
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Old 09-18-2015, 11:22 AM
 
Location: Alameda, CA
7,605 posts, read 4,844,821 times
Reputation: 1438
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent View Post
The government lowering lending standards caused the bubble. No easy money = no bubble.
Hmm, whose analysis am I going to trust yours or Greenspan's. I think I will go with Greenspan.
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Old 09-18-2015, 11:31 AM
 
Location: the very edge of the continent
89,000 posts, read 44,813,405 times
Reputation: 13699
Quote:
Originally Posted by WilliamSmyth View Post
Hmm, whose analysis am I going to trust yours or Greenspan's. I think I will go with Greenspan.
What do you not get about no easy money = no bubble, hmmm...?

Significantly lowered lending standards, 3%-down mortgages... Who was responsible for those changes?
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Old 09-18-2015, 11:31 AM
 
Location: Austin
15,631 posts, read 10,388,492 times
Reputation: 19524
U.S. Census Bureau data out Wednesday underscore just how lousy the recovery has been.

Income, [other than those earning the highest 10% of household incomes], was below 2006 levels, indicating they’re still clawing their way out of the hole caused by the deepest recession in the post-World War II era.

Median household income is 6.5 percent lower than in 2007, the year the recession started.

So this is now what we call a “recovery”?

Overall, median income was $53,657 in 2014, not a statistically significant difference on an inflation-adjusted basis from 2013’s median of $54,462. It’s the third straight year that there’s been no significant change, after two consecutive years of annual declines.

That’s happened even though the labor market has posted steady progress.

Meanwhile, the official poverty rate was 14.8 percent, with some 46.7 million people in poverty—both little changed from 2013. The rate is 2.3 percentage points higher than it was in 2007.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...e-already-rich
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Old 09-18-2015, 11:34 AM
 
Location: Barrington
63,919 posts, read 46,731,596 times
Reputation: 20674
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry View Post
If government didn't get involved in lowering the standards we wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place.

?
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent View Post
That is exactly correct.
We have to go all the way back to time before the Great Depression, before government imposed itself on mortgage standards. At that time you needed a 50% downstroke and the note matured in 5 years. Upon maturity, you either paid off the note in full or re qualified for a new mortgage, at current interest rates. The inability to qualify or afford a new mortgage meant the lender could foreclose and they did.

Despite lending standards at the time, about 50% of homes went into foreclosure during the Great Depression. It was so bad in some areas, some states imposed moratoriums on new foreclosures. Banks/ thrifts declined to write new loans because the risk of failure were so great.

That's when government entered the mortgage market. Terms Eased, over time, with government involvement.

The first zero down loans were VA loans, a part of the GI bill. VA loans were fully guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, come what may.

There is a consistent 85 year history behind government involvement in home loans.
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Old 09-18-2015, 11:46 AM
 
Location: Alameda, CA
7,605 posts, read 4,844,821 times
Reputation: 1438
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent View Post
What do you not get about no easy money = no bubble, hmmm...?

Significantly lowered lending standards, 3%-down mortgages... Who was responsible for those changes?
Where was the easy money coming from at the height of the bubble?

- THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND THE ROLE OF FEDERAL REGULATORS

But subprime mortgages, pooled and sold as securities,
became subject to explosive demand from investors around the
world. These mortgage-backed securities, being subprime, were
originally offered at what appeared to be exceptionally high
risk-adjusted market interest rates. But with the U.S. home
prices still rising, delinquency and foreclosure rates were
deceptively modest. Losses were minimal. To the most
sophisticated investors in the world, they were wrongly viewed
as a steal.
The consequent surge in global demand for U.S. subprime
securities by banks, hedge and pension funds, supported by
unrealistically positive rating designations by credit
agencies, was, in my judgment, the core of the problem.
Demand
became so aggressive that too many securitizers and lenders
believed they were able to create and sell mortgage-backed
securities so quickly, that they never put their shareholders'
capital at risk, and, hence, did not have the incentive to
evaluate the credit quality of what they were selling.

Pressures on lenders to supply more paper collapsed
subprime underwriting standards from 2005 forward. Uncritical
acceptance of credit ratings by purchasers of these toxic
assets has led to huge losses.
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Old 09-18-2015, 12:21 PM
 
Location: the very edge of the continent
89,000 posts, read 44,813,405 times
Reputation: 13699
Quote:
Originally Posted by WilliamSmyth View Post
Where was the easy money coming from at the height of the bubble?
From the sale of the MBS the GSEs were issuing and selling to financial institutions, investors, and even foreign governments, worldwide, which sold well then because of the perceived U.S. Government guarantee (even though such is not true). Where else do you think the money would come from?

The Federal Reserve didn't start buying agency MBS until after the mortgage meltdown. It now owns about $2 trillion in agency MBS and debt:

http://media.pimco.com/PublishingIma...t2014_Fig1.PNG

It's interesting to note that non-agency (private sector) MBS is only around 15% of the market.



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Old 09-18-2015, 12:27 PM
 
Location: Long Island
32,816 posts, read 19,480,794 times
Reputation: 9618
Quote:
Originally Posted by WilliamSmyth View Post
Where was the easy money coming from at the height of the bubble?

- THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND THE ROLE OF FEDERAL REGULATORS

But subprime mortgages, pooled and sold as securities,
became subject to explosive demand from investors around the
world. These mortgage-backed securities, being subprime, were
originally offered at what appeared to be exceptionally high
risk-adjusted market interest rates. But with the U.S. home
prices still rising, delinquency and foreclosure rates were
deceptively modest. Losses were minimal. To the most
sophisticated investors in the world, they were wrongly viewed
as a steal.
The consequent surge in global demand for U.S. subprime
securities by banks, hedge and pension funds, supported by
unrealistically positive rating designations by credit
agencies, was, in my judgment, the core of the problem.
Demand
became so aggressive that too many securitizers and lenders
believed they were able to create and sell mortgage-backed
securities so quickly, that they never put their shareholders'
capital at risk, and, hence, did not have the incentive to
evaluate the credit quality of what they were selling.

Pressures on lenders to supply more paper collapsed
subprime underwriting standards from 2005 forward. Uncritical
acceptance of credit ratings by purchasers of these toxic
assets has led to huge losses.

oh please.. greenspud??? he was part of it too

The New York Times
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: Thursday, September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending - NYTimes.com
.................................................. ...




NOTICE THE DATE of the NYT article[b].........30 Sep 1999



============================

and this is where it starts
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/10/bu...me-buying.html
Fannie Mae Seeks to Ease Home Buying
By KEITH BRADSHER,
Published: March 10, 1994

Under the new rules, banks would have more flexibility in lending to people who already owe a considerable amount of money or who cannot afford a down payment equal to 20 percent of the price of a home, the people said. Tuesday Announcement

In addition to changing its guidelines, Fannie Mae plans a national educational campaign that will seek to teach recent immigrants and minorities how to obtain mortgages. The campaign will be aimed particularly at immigrants in a dozen "gateway" cities where the percentage of home ownership has been declining.

Mortgage experts have estimated that up to two million American households are excluded from buying homes now because of conservative mortgage lending standards. These include Americans with minor blemishes on their credit records, for such things as changing jobs repeatedly or failing to pay utility bills on time. Most mortgage experts assume that even people who fall behind on other bills will struggle to make mortgage payments lest they lose their homes.

Freddie Mac loosened its guidelines for low-income mortgages a few weeks ago. But Deepak Bhargava, the legislative director of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a New Orleans-based group of affordable housing advocates, said that Freddie Mac's guidelines remained more restrictive than Fannie Mae's.

Next week's changes in Fannie Mae's guidelines will probably widen the gap between the two institutions' policies, Mr. Bhargava said. Freddie Mac officials did not return phone calls made to their homes and office this evening.

Fannie Mae Seeks to Ease Home Buying
By KEITH BRADSHER,
Published: March 10, 1994

WASHINGTON, March 9— The organization that stands behind many of the nation's mortgages is taking broad steps to make home ownership easier for lower-income Americans, particularly recent immigrants and minorities, people involved in the effort said today

Under the new rules, banks would have more flexibility in lending to people who already owe a considerable amount of money or who cannot afford a down payment equal to 20 percent of the price of a home, the people said. Tuesday Announcement

President Clinton is tentatively scheduled to attend the announcement. The Administration is urging that loans be more broadly available to poor and lower-middle-income Americans.


In addition to changing its guidelines, Fannie Mae plans a national educational campaign that will seek to teach recent immigrants and minorities how to obtain mortgages. The campaign will be aimed particularly at immigrants in a dozen "gateway" cities where the percentage of home ownership has been declining.

"Mortgage-lending criteria have been very conservative, and we have a lot of people who should be creditworthy and have been cut out," said Thomas H. Stanton, a former Fannie Mae lawyer.

Fannie Mae and the much smaller Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, better known as Freddie Mac, are publicly traded enterprises that were created by the Federal Government to help provide more money for mortgages. They have issued or guaranteed securities made up of about $1 trillion worth of mortgages bought from lenders.

Mortgage experts have estimated that up to two million American households are excluded from buying homes now because of conservative mortgage lending standards. These include Americans with minor blemishes on their credit records, for such things as changing jobs repeatedly or failing to pay utility bills on time. Most mortgage experts assume that even people who fall behind on other bills will struggle to make mortgage payments lest they lose their homes.

Freddie Mac loosened its guidelines for low-income mortgages a few weeks ago. But Deepak Bhargava, the legislative director of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a New Orleans-based group of affordable housing advocates, said that Freddie Mac's guidelines remained more restrictive than Fannie Mae's.

Next week's changes in Fannie Mae's guidelines will probably widen the gap between the two institutions' policies, Mr. Bhargava said. Freddie Mac officials did not return phone calls made to their homes and office this evening.

In its proposal, the Fed staff said raising the threshold would increase the availability of credit and ease the regulatory burden on banks without endangering the safety and soundness of the banking industry.

----------------------------------

so you still want to spin the 2002-2006 garbage,....... huh

In its proposal, the Fed staff said raising the threshold would increase the availability of credit and ease the regulatory burden on banks without endangering the safety and soundness of the banking industry.

----------------------------------

so you still want to spin the 2002-2006 and only from private lenders garbage,....... huh

Last edited by workingclasshero; 09-18-2015 at 12:36 PM..
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Old 09-18-2015, 12:42 PM
 
Location: Long Island
32,816 posts, read 19,480,794 times
Reputation: 9618
what was some analysts saying in 2001.....hmm 2001

Housing in the New Millennium: A Home Without Equity is Just a Rental with Debt by Joshua Rosner :: SSRN
Housing in the New Millennium: A Home Without Equity is Just a Rental with Debt

Joshua Rosner
Graham Fisher & Co.

June 29, 2001



Abstract:

This report assesses the prospects of the U.S. housing/mortgage sector over the next several years. Based on our analysis, we believe there are elements in place for the housing sector to continue to experience growth well above GDP. However, we believe there are risks that can materially distort the growth prospects of the sector. Specifically, it appears that a large portion of the housing sector's growth in the 1990's came from the easing of the credit underwriting process. Such easing includes:

* The drastic reduction of minimum down payment levels from 20% to 0%
* A focused effort to target the "low income" borrower
* The reduction in private mortgage insurance requirements on high loan to value mortgages
* The increasing use of software to streamline the origination process and modify/recast delinquent loans in order to keep them classified as "current"
* Changes in the appraisal process which has led to widespread overappraisal/over-valuation problems

If these trends remain in place, it is likely that the home purchase boom of the past decade will continue unabated. Despite the increasingly more difficult economic environment, it may be possible for lenders to further ease credit standards and more fully exploit less penetrated markets. Recently targeted populations that have historically been denied homeownership opportunities have offered the mortgage industry novel hurdles to overcome. Industry participants in combination with eased regulatory standards and the support of the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) have overcome many of them.

If there is an economic disruption that causes a marked rise in unemployment, the negative impact on the housing market could be quite large. These impacts come in several forms. They include a reduction in the demand for homeownership, a decline in real estate prices and increased foreclosure expenses.

These impacts would be exacerbated by the increasing debt burden of the U.S. consumer and the reduction of home equity available in the home. Although we have yet to see any materially negative consequences of the relaxation of credit standards, we believe the risk of credit relaxation and leverage can't be ignored. Importantly, a relatively new method of loan forgiveness can temporarily alter the perception of credit health in the housing sector. In an effort to keep homeowners in the home and reduce foreclosure expenses, holders of mortgage assets are currently recasting or modifying troubled loans. Such policy initiatives may for a time distort the relevancy of delinquency and foreclosure statistics. However, a protracted housing slowdown could eventually cause modifications to become uneconomic and, thus, credit quality statistics would likely become relevant once again. The virtuous circle of increasing homeownership due to greater leverage has the potential to become a vicious cycle of lower home prices due to an accelerating rate of foreclosures.

Presented: 2002 Mid-Year Meeting American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association National Association of Home Builders Washington, DC May 28-29, 2002.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 31
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