An overview: The ’07 Sub-prime Mortgage Failure Essay

The mortgage crisis of 2007 marked catastrophe for millions of homeowners who suffered from foreclosure and short sales. Most of the problems involving the foreclosing of families’ homes could boil down to risky borrowing and lending. Lenders were pushed to ensure families would be eligible for a loan, when in previous years the same families would have been deemed too high-risk to obtain any kind of loan. With the increase in high-risk families obtaining loans, there was a huge increase in home buyers and subsequently a rapid increase in home prices. As a result, prices peaked and then began falling just as fast as they rose. Soon after families began to default on their mortgages forcing them either into foreclosure or short sales. Who was to blame for the risky lending and borrowing that caused the mortgage meltdown? Many might blame the company Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but in reality the entire system of buying and selling and free market failed home owners and the housing economy.

A moral hazard is an occasion in which there is a lack of incentives to prevent against possible risks because one is protected from the consequences that could occur. Such a moral hazard can regularly occur in a crisis in terms of how people in higher positions react to handling such a situation. If someone like a banker has the confidence that they would be bailed out if a crisis occurs it provides them with an incentive to practice risker business practices. In the situation of a crisis that is already underway the government is unable to let large and prominent financial institutions fail. As a result they must bail them out and in such an action they create a moral hazard. It provides the financial sector an incentive to practice

The bursting of the housing bubble, known more colloquially as the 2008 mortgage crisis, was preceded by a series of ill-fated circumstances that culminated in what has been considered to be the worst financial downfall since the Great Depression. After experiencing a near-unprecedented increase in housing prices from January 2002 until mid-2006, a phenomenon that was steadily fed by unregulated mortgage practices, the market steadily declined and the prior housing boom subsided as well. When housing prices dropped to about 25 percent below the peak level achieved in 2006 toward the close of 2008, liquidity and capital disappeared from the market.

The responsibilities of the mortgage brokers to the borrowers, lenders, and investors were to promote the subprime mortgages to these groups of people in order for them to take out a loan. Although they did fulfill their responsibilities of promoting and having people sign up for it, they mishandled on how people should be granted for a mortgage loan. These brokers were to desperate about earning huge amount of money due to the expanding market that they ignored the proper precaution that they should have taken when they

Subprime mortgage lending is the origination of residential mortgage loans to customers with impaired credit histories. Typically, these borrowers have lower credit scores and/or other credit deficiencies that prevent them from qualifying for prime mortgages. Subprime borrowers pay premium above the prime market rate in order to compensate the lender for bearing greater default risk. In addition, subprime borrowers pay higher origination and continuous costs, such as applications fees, appraisal fees, mortgage insurance payments, late fees and fines for delinquent payments.

The increased pressure on mortgage lenders to be socially responsible and lend to all groups create an opportunity for banks to lend more and charge higher fees to select borrowers who they feel pose a greater risk of default (Palmer, 2015). The primary purpose of the CRA is to assist minorities and lower income individuals from neglect and discrimination. The CRA policy might have forced the banks to implement change to aid individuals who may not qualify for a home loan to be eligible. If the banks did not follow suit with the CRA policies, they might have missed opportunities, such as mergers, acquisitions, and profitability (Elbarouski, 2016). Allen (2011) concluded loose lending led to expanding homeownership in the United States, but lending to riskier borrowers led to an increase in the foreclosure

All the economy’s parts seem to be working together for a change: joblessness is under 5% - a 24 year low – yet inflation is holding steady at 3%, a combination that economists thought impossible” (Pooley). This article placed the economy in very favorable position, but the economy collapsed back in 2008 when Wall Street folded. In a video published by Johnathan Jarvis titled “The Cause and Effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis,” the video explains how the economy went from being healthy and vibrant, to desperate and helpless because investors were creating mortgages with people who were not financially stable, and those mortgagors were more than likely struggling to pay their debts prior to attaining a sub-prime mortgage loan. When these sub-prime mortgages defaulted, the house was reposed by the mortgagee and put on the market to sell. When the house went up for sale because of the default, the

During 2007 through 2010 there existed what we commonly refer to as the subprime mortgage crisis. Through deduction of readings by those considered esteemed in the realm of finance - such as Ben Bernanke - the crisis arose out of an earlier expansion of mortgage credit. This included extending mortgages to borrowers who previously would have had difficulty getting mortgages; this both contributed to and was facilitated by rapidly rising home prices. Pre-subprime mortgages, those looking to buy homes found it difficult to obtain mortgages if they had below average credit histories, provided small down payments or sought high-payment loans without the collateral, income, and/or credit history to match with their mortgage request. Indeed some high-risk families could obtain small-sized mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), otherwise, those facing limited credit options, rented. Because of these processes, home ownership fluctuated around 65 percent, mortgage foreclosure rates were low, and home construction and house prices mainly reflected swings in mortgage interest rates and income.

When making a subprime loan it is the responsibility of the lender to discern whether the loan is a good risk for the borrower and the lender. If the loan is going to be a poor risk to the borrower

As I have touched on earlier, one of the causes of the GFC and why the sub-prime came about is because people were essentially leant money when they could not repay it. Too many people were given keys to these houses without any real capacity to service their loans. Obviously, this was not the only reason for the meltdown but it certainly played a very big part in the crisis.

There is no doubt that subprime lending was a major cause of the Recession. It was a tactic used by investment banks in order to get more money from unsuspecting homeowners. However, lenders found out that most of the people who were qualified to have a mortgage already had one. In turn, the lenders had to lower their credit criteria for people to take out a loan on a house. This is how the term subprime lending came to be in the financial world. As a result of subprime lending, the investors were able to make millions off of these mortgages. People who qualified for a subprime mortgage usually had a credit score below that of 620. To make the subprime mortgage deal more customer friendly, the lending banks decided to have the people who qualified for these mortgages didn’t have to have a down payment. Normally, the down payment would be as much as 20%, but this made it easier for people to get mortgages without having to worry about how much money they needed at the beginning of their purchase. “ Many American homeowners bought houses they could not afford,

In the early-2000s, Moody’s, one of the leading credit rating agencies in the world, evaluated thousands of bonds backed by so-called “subprime” residential mortgages—home loans made to those with both low incomes and poor credit scores. When housing prices began to fall in 2006, the value of these bonds disintegrated, and Moody’s was compelled to downgrade them significantly. In late 2008, several commercial banks, investment banks, and mortgage lenders that had been

The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was a set of events that led to the 2008 financial crisis, characterized by a rise in subprime mortgage defaults and foreclosures. This paper seeks to explain the causes of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and how this has led to a generalized credit crisis in other financial sectors that ultimately affects the real economy. In recent decades, financial industry has developed quickly and various financial innovation techniques have been abused widely, which is the main cause of this international financial crisis. In addition, deregulation, loose monetary policies of the Federal Reserve, shadow banking system also play

A borrower who has more assets poses less risk to a lender and will typically get a

One of the first indications of the late 2000 financial crisis that led to downward spiral known as the “Recession” was the subprime mortgages; known as the “mortgage mess”. A few years earlier the substantial boom of the housing market led to the uprising of mortgage loans. Because interest rates were low, investors took advantage of the low rates to buy homes that they could in return ‘flip’ (reselling) and homeowners bought homes that they typically wouldn’t have been able to afford. High interest rates usually keep people from borrowing money because it limits the amount available to use for an investment. But the creation of the subprime mortgage