Credit Crunch in Usa-Causes and Solutions

The housing crisis of the late 2000s rocked the economy and changed the landscape of the real estate business for years to come. Decades of people purchasing houses unfordable houses and properties with lenient loans policies led to a collective housing bubble. When the banking system faltered and the economy wilted, interest rates were raised, mortgages increased, and people lost their jobs amidst the chaos. This all culminated in tens of thousands of American losing their houses to foreclosures and short sales, as they could no longer afford the mortgage payments on their homes. The United States entered a recession and homeownership no longer appeared to be a feasible goal as many questioned whether the country could continue to support a middle-class. Former home owners became renters and in some cases homeless as the American Dream was delayed with no foreseeable return. While the future of the economy looked bleak, conditions gradually improved. American citizens regained their jobs, the United States government bailed out the banking industry, and regulations were put in place to deter such events as the mortgage crash from ever taking place again. The path to homeowner ship has been forever altered, as loans in general are now more difficult to acquire and can be accompanied by a substantial down payment.

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.

Subprime lending became prevalent in the early 2000’s when property values were sky-rocketing and many Americans thought they would fulfill their home ownership dreams, by obtaining loans they may not otherwise qualify for. A subprime loan is a loan offered to an individual who does not qualify for a loan at the prime rate due to their credit history. Subprime loans have higher interest rates because of the risk that the lender is taking. During the early 2000’s the housing market was great for homebuyers, since interest rates where low and property values

So what exactly happened to the subprime mortgage market that caused all of this? It actually goes back to 1998 with the Glass-Steagall legislation, which separated regular banks and investment banks was repealed in 1998. This allowed banks, whose deposits were guaranteed by the FDIC to engage in highly risky business because they were guaranteed their deposits up to $250,000 per depositor. Following the dot-com bust in 2000, the Federal Reserve dropped rates to 1 percent and kept them there for an extended period. This drop in rates caused bank managers to have to go after higher-yielding bonds because they could no longer make decent yields off of municipal bonds or treasury bonds. They, like Wall Street, got creative with lending, and went after high-yield mortgage-backed securities like subprime mortgages which were mostly dominated by non-bank originators but because of the demand, many banks and private sector lenders jumped on board to increase profits.

According to Bates & Robb (2015), the history of subprime mortgage lending dates back to the early 1970's when the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) passed. The CRA change the way federally chartered banks loan money in inner-city communities to primarily low income and minority consumers (Schuchter, & Jutte, 2014). The intent of the CRA was not to prevent the financial crisis; however, it did play a role in the mortgage crisis. The original indictment of the statute, however, it failed to insulate low- and moderate-income communities from the harshest impacts of the crisis (Brescia, 2014). The CRA legislation purpose is to generate a response to lending activities that occurred primarily in urban communities, but it also applies to depository

Lenders began foreclosure proceedings on about 1.3 million properties in 2007 which increased to 2.3 million in 2008 (an increase of about 81% from 2007) - Wikipedia.

A few years later the market took a turn for the worse, where interest rates were on the rise, and homes were losing their value quickly. Now borrowers that were in these interest only ARM’s needed to refinance these loans because the rates were going up, to a point where the homeowner was not be able to afford the payment. The Federal Reserve tried to stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates during the recession in early 2001, from over 6% in 2000, to a rate just above 1.25% in 2002. These low rates encouraged many Americans to apply for loans for homes that a few years ago they would have not been able to. To encourage the homeownership boom, the Bush administration urged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to allot more money for low-income borrowers so they could buy their own homes. This resulted in the subprime mortgage

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.

The crisis that stressed lots of economies and financial systems originated in US mortgage lending markets. First signals of possible problems came in early 2007, when the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation announced about its inability of purchasing high-risk mortgages, after what New Century Financial Corporation - a leading mortgage lender to riskier customers - filed for bankruptcy (John Marshall, 2009). In the research paper of 2009 he claims that source of the crisis emanated from the rise of house pricing, called housing bubble. “US house prices rose dramatically from 1998 until late 2005, more than doubling over this period, and far faster than average wages. Further support for the existence of a bubble came from the ratio of house prices to renting costs which rocketed upwards around 1999..” (John Marshall, 2009, p 10). Housing bubble was also fully analyzed by Dean Baker in his research “The housing Bubble and the financial crisis” in 2008. Dean noticed that, by the middle of 2007, house prices had peaked and began to head downward.

The demand for houses, along with a belief that home values would continually soar, fueled the building boom that would eventually result in our demise. Once the grace period on mortgage loans ended, and house prices began to decline, many people found themselves unable to escape the high monthly payments and began to default. Increasing foreclosures continued to lower the prices of homes, by 2008 it was estimated that 23% of all homes were worth less than their mortgages. 2.9 million vacant homes later, it is safe to say the consequences of short-sighted expenditures were severe. Since then, more than 6 million Americans have lost their homes to foreclosure. Much of the blame for the housing crisis can be traced back to rumor in the stock market. While homes are not typically viewed as investments under speculation, statistics show that this was not the case during the mortgage crisis. 22% of homes purchased in 2006 were for investment purposes.

The most commonly known sub-prime finance crisis came into illumination when a sudden rise in home foreclosures in 2006 twirled seemingly out of control in 2007, triggering a nationwide economic crisis that went worldwide within the year. The greatest responsibility is pointed at the lenders who created such problems. It was the lenders who, at the end of the day, lend finances to citizens with poor credit and a high risk of failure to pay. When the Feds inundated the markets with growing capital

Additionally, a primary factor in the financial crisis was unsustainable mortgage lending. Subprime mortgages increased from eight percent of total mortgages in 2004 to twenty percent in 2006 with more than 90 percent of these mortgages being adjustable rate mortgages allowing borrowers to qualify for loans for which they did not have long-term repayment capacity. Furthermore, lenders lowered their loan underwriting standards especially for loan to appraised value and repayment capacity to allow borrowers to obtain significantly larger loans than in the past. System institutions did not participate in lowered lending standards. The System is prohibited by regulation from making mortgage loans with

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

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

In relation to the increase in house’s price, the rise of financial agreements such as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO) encouraged investors to invest in the U.S housing market (Krugman, 2009). When housing price declined in the U.S, many financial institutions that borrowed and invested in subprime mortgage reported losses. In addition, the fall of housing price resulted in default and foreclosure and that began to exhaust consumer’s wealth and