Countrywide's Logic

“Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.” In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs provides a portrayal of her life as a black slave girl in the 1800s. Though Harriet described herself as having yellowish brown skin; she was the child of a black mother and

Pay options were also available allowing the borrowers to choose lower payments and the balance of what you should pay and what you actually paid was added to the loan to have a negative amortization. The introductory low rates were called Teaser Rates. The goal was to make home ownership more affordable for more people. Michael Francis and other brokers in Wall Street knew that some of these loans are bad loans but they didn’t cared because they transferred all these loans to whoever wanted to buy them such as pension funds. They are just the intermediary or the pipeline. These pension funds could only buy AAA mortgage loan. The investors wanted to sell their loans to the pension funds but they needed to be rated AAA by these agencies. Their job was to evaluate the risk of the securities. What was the ethical issue here with the agencies? The riskier BBB looked as good as the triple AAA and they looked much safer than they used to be and they started to look more like a AAA security. So AAA requirement got lower as the market got smart. Moodies, S&P, and Fitch are the three rating agencies. They didn’t give price but based on their ratings they got priced. The suggestion is that these agencies would come with the investment bankers. The business was getting more competitive so you just wanted to get more business or more business than the other agencies. When Anne Arundel was asked if standards lower she

The Issues The radio program draws an overall picture of the subprime mortgage crisis, how the subprime market was created, how the crisis happened, what were the result and its impact. (See appendix A - my summary of the case) The primary issues in this case are: why did the

Lawsuits seem to be coming from all directions, federal and state investigative probes are launched against them, stock price tumbled to 1/5 of its value, even desperate lenders demonstrated outside their offices. 2007 has definitely not been Countrywide 's year.

     What is happening is that there are some unethical lending practices that are threatening the housing industry as a whole. The concern involves the practices of some sub-prime lenders. These practices are considered to be “predatory” on consumers. Sub-prime lenders offer home loans (Equity Loans & 1st Time Home Purchase Loans) to moderate to lower income families. These clients are considered to be high credit risk borrowers, also know as B-C-D credit clients. Interest rates and other loan terms generally cost more than those paid by clients served by prime lenders with better credit records (A credit clients). Sub-prime borrowers end up paying more simply because the risk of loan repayment is fundamentally higher than that of a prime market borrower.

Often, when someone can’t afford housing prices, they will apply for low-income housing prices that will

In 2008 the real estate market crashed because of the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act and Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which led to shady mortgage lending or “liar loans” (Hartman). The loans primarily approved for lower income and middle class borrowers with little income or no job income verification, which lead to many buyers purchasing homes they could not afford because everyone wants a piece of the American dream; homeownership. Because of “reckless lending to lower- and middle-income borrowers who could not afford to repay their loans many of the home buyers lost everything when the market collapsed” (Tankersley 3). Homeowners often continued to live in their houses for months or years without paying any

They never realized that they were using their home as collateral or that the documents were applications to secure equity loans, line of credits, and modifications. It was proven that many could not read or write. Nevertheless, the banks were able to move forward with the foreclosures and the victims lost their home to either the bank or the contractors. Despite the clear demonstration of criminal activity, no arrests were made and very few consequences directed toward those licensed to uphold the highest standards and to protect the consumer. The fraud and abuse was so widespread throughout the entire real estate industry. Mortgage and real estate brokers, roofers, contractors, surveyors, inspectors, and bankers; there was definitely enough blame to go around.

As competition increased between savings and loans, banks, and credit unions, banks were eager to attract loan applicants in order to increase revenue and compete with other financial institutions. Jack S. Light, the author of Increasing Competition between Financial Institutions, said in his book that “commercial banks are diversifying their assets toward higher percentages of mortgages and consumer loans, and thrift institutions are seeking authority to diversify their loan structures. Moreover, mounting pressures are working toward, and have partially succeeded in, changing the authority of thrifts to include third-party payment accounts similar to commercial bank demand deposits.” (Light) Because of this eagerness to bring in new clients, they were willing to give out loans without checking into the financial stability of the borrower or the business that was requesting the loan. Unfortunately since the banks didn 't look into their clients’ financials adequately, many clients defaulted on their loans because they could not afford the payments, especially when balloon payments started.

for foreclosure victims to receive, for example, and various leasing plans, such as rent-to-own, are As a consequence, families were increasingly unable to pay their Simineri 2 mortgages, leading moneylenders to seize the property and culminating in the Foreclosure Crisis. Many of those families whose homes were not foreclosed were forced to sell their homes in

Tapping the Ethnic Housing Market Opportunities and Challenges for Housing Lenders and Realtors The tables in the text make it clear that there is a large gap between the minority population and the general population in regard to knowledge and education about the housing market. Housing discrimination and unethical lending practices

The mortgage lenders were extremely greedy, they offered undocumented immigrants as well as citizens the high-risk loans. These immigrants were not in a place where they could take any type of loans or be in debt with any corporation. However, the mortgage loans were easy to obtain so they give

It is very difficult to get a loan from a commercial bank for first-time homebuyers, and for existing homeowners who are in the process of foreclosure. The loan modification programs that are available now are bandages for a much bigger problem, the problem lies in the underlying banking system practices, polices and traditional way of doing business.

The company’s incentive system also encouraged brokers and sales representatives to move borrowers into the subprime category, even if their financial position meant that they belonged higher up the loan spectrum. Brokers who peddled subprime loans received commissions of 0.50 percent of the loan’s value, versus 0.20 percent on loans one step up the quality ladder. For years, a software system in Countrywide’s subprime unit, sales representatives used to calculate the loan type that a borrower qualified for, did not allow the input of a borrower’s cash reserves (Morgenson, 2007).

The Subprime Mortgage crisis ECO 2072 Principles of Macroeconomics In the beginning 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