The Causes And Effects Of The Subprime Crisis

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.

Since mid 1990s, the subprime mortgage market has grown rapidly experiencing a phenomenal 23% compound annual growth rate to 2006. The total subprime loan originations increased from $65 billion in 1995 to $613 billion in 2006. The subprime sector has become a significant sub-sector of the total residential market accounting for 21% of all residential mortgage originations in 2006. Similarly, by year-end 2006, total outstanding balance of subprime loans grew to $1.2 trillion, approximately 12.6% of all outstanding mortgage debt.

After the optimistic forecast from the realstate that the houses value were going to increase, many institutions started to make adjustments to take profit from this trend. In some cases, prime mortgages were allowed for subprime borrowers to take. This might look like a great idea to financial institutions because the house values were rising: if a people (who in the first place couldn’t afford a house) stop paying their mortgages then the bank could sell the house for a value greater than the one at the moment of default. Everything was going well, so how is it that the crisis unfolded? Well, these institutions wanted to make more profit

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

effectively encouraged frivolous spending and heavy borrowing allowing people to live beyond their means. Low interest rates also increased the discount value of assets and therefore increased their value. This created a house price boom in the UK and US. It was in the US that this twined with high levels of borrowing created the subprime lending market, whereby individuals with poor or no credit history borrowed vast subs of money to buy

During the housing crisis there were many factors in what had happened to the housing bubble in 2007(Curry 2013). These factors listed played a major part in the crash of the housing market. Subprime loans are just part of what had led to the market crashing. Subprime loan is giving people a loan who may not be able to keep up with the monthly payment. They were generally turned away for low credit, or may not have any qualifications to help them get a loan from prime lenders. The following reasons are reasons that came up on multiple occasions when reading:

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,

The housing market crash, which broke out in the United States in 2007, was caused by high risk subprime mortgages. The subprime mortgage crisis resulted in a sudden reduction in money and credit availability from banks and other lending institutions, which was referred to as a “credit crunch.” The “credit crunch” and its effect spread across the United States and further on to other countries across the world. The “credit crunch” caused a collapse in the housing markets, stock markets and major financial institutions across the globe.

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

*Disclaimer* I don’t know much about accounting (or anything in business for that matter) at this point in time. This will be the first time I will be looking into the sub-prime mortgage crisis and my opinions could well be wrong. However this is exactly what it looks like, my opinion on this topic. Hopefully it is sufficient for the purposes of this discussion and this class.

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

Investors assume the credit rating agencies, which full of experienced finance experts, can present a trust worthy and correct rating of credit risks. By implementing the external credit rating information, excessive trust in the system of credit rating agencies weakens investors’ risk management practices. Therefore, when those big, authoritative rating agencies rate those subprime mortgages as AAAs, investors put more money in the subprime market and expected to make big money. At first, the investors did make a lot of money in subprime investments, and they invested more and more, until they saturated the market. When the analysts in credit rating agencies eventually realized the bubble of the subprime market and they began to downgrade large amounts of mortgage securities, it was too late. When people saw the decline of subprime market and an abrupt downgrading of mortgage securities, the investors panicked and the market crashed. The rating from credit rating agencies accelerated the flourish of subprime mortgage market at the beginning, and eventually pushed the process of the financial crisis.

US financial crisis occurred in 2008 was to fulfill what the economists Dornbusch had declared, “In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.” (Dornbusch 2) The risks and destructive power of US subprime mortgage market, due to its outbreak, beyond most people's imagination. Eventually, it evolved into an unprecedented global financial crisis. What’s the initial reason for subprime? For this part, I going to analysis the tangible and intangible costs through financial crisis on US capital market, and compare the data from 1998-2013.

In addition, members of the market were looking for “higher yields” without realizing the risks and did not do proper research on the real estate industry. Meanwhile, insubstantial financial standards, unreliable preparations of risk management, and gradually complex and not clear financial products together created some weaknesses in the real estate system that led to the so-called “subprime mortgage crisis.” These are some of the causes of the subprime.

The subprime mortgage financial crisis which happened in 2008 to 2009.this crisis leaves the world in frightened. Therefore financial economy is totally unable to regain on the same situation. However to control the economy crisis and to avoid in the future for such situation we need to review and need to avoid this situation.