An article worth reading from the Dallas Fed
Looking for a succinct summation of the past several years in the housing and mortgage industry -- and an explanation of how we got into the mess we're in today? Then take a look at the latest Economic Letter out of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. An article titled "The Rise and Fall of Subprime Mortgages" walks you through many of the highlights and lowlights of lending/housing activity, circa 2000-2007.
There's not a lot of new ground covered, but there are plenty of key points and stats for us to chew on. Here are some excerpts (with select passages emphasized in bold by me):
* Some 80 percent of outstanding U.S. mortgages are prime, while 14 percent are subprime and 6 percent fall into the near-prime category. These numbers, however, mask the explosive growth of nonprime mortgages. Subprime and near-prime loans shot up from 9 percent of newly originated securitized mortgages in 2001 to 40 percent in 2006
The nonprime boom introduced practices that made it easier to obtain loans. Some mortgages required little or no proof of income; others needed little or no down payment. Homebuyers could take out a simultaneous second, or piggyback, mortgage at the time of purchase, make interest-only payments for up to 15 years, skip payments by reducing equity or, in some cases, obtain a mortgage that exceeded the home's value.
* As problems began to emerge in late 2006, investors realized they had purchased nonprime RMBS with overly optimistic expectations of loan quality. Much of their misjudgment plausibly stemmed from the difficulty of forecasting default losses based on the short history of nonprime loans.
Subprime loan problems had surfaced just before and at the start of the 2001 recession but then rapidly retreated from 2002 to 2005 as the economy recovered. This pre-2006 pattern suggested that as long as unemployment remained low, so, too, would default and delinquency rates.
This interpretation ignored two other factors that had helped alleviate subprime loan problems earlier in the decade. First, this was a period of rapidly escalating home prices. Subprime borrowers who encountered financial problems could either borrow against their equity to make house payments or sell their homes to settle their debts. Second, interest rates declined significantly in the early 2000s. This helped lower the base rate to which adjustable mortgage rates were indexed, thereby limiting the increase when initial, teaser rates ended.
Favorable home-price and interest rate developments likely led models that were overly focused on unemployment as a driver of problem loans to underestimate the risk of nonprime mortgages. Indeed, swings in home-price appreciation and interest rates may also explain why prime and subprime loan quality have trended together in the 2000s. This can be seen once we account for the fact that past-due rates—the percentage of mortgages delinquent or in some stage of foreclosure—typically run five times higher on subprime loans (Chart 3). When the favorable home-price and interest rate factors reversed, the past-due rate rose markedly, despite continued low unemployment.
* Failure to appreciate the risks of nonprime loans prompted lenders to overly ease credit standards. The result was a huge jump in origination shares for subprime and near-prime mortgages.
Compared with conventional prime loans in 2006, average down payments were lower, at 6 percent for subprime mortgages and 12 percent for near-prime loans. The relatively small down payments often entailed borrowers' taking out piggyback loans to pay the portion of their home prices above the 80 percent covered by first-lien mortgages.
Another form of easing facilitated the rapid rise of mortgages that didn't require borrowers to fully document their incomes. In 2006, these low- or no-doc loans comprised 81 percent of near-prime, 55 percent of jumbo, 50 percent of subprime and 36 percent of prime securitized mortgages.
The easier lending standards coincided with a sizeable rise in adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Of the mortgages originated in 2006 that were later securitized, 92 percent of subprime, 68 percent of near-prime, 43 percent of jumbo and 23 percent of prime mortgages had adjustable rates. Now, with rates on one-year adjustable and 30-year fixed mortgages close, ARMs' market share has dwindled to 15 percent, less than half its recent peak of 35 percent in 2004.
* In the absence of home-price appreciation, many households are finding it difficult to refinance their way out of adjustable-rate mortgages obtained at the height of the housing boom. Larger mortgage payments could exacerbate delinquencies and foreclosures, especially with interest rate resets expected to remain high for the next year. This suggests mortgage quality will likely continue to fall off for some time.
There's not a lot of new ground covered, but there are plenty of key points and stats for us to chew on. Here are some excerpts (with select passages emphasized in bold by me):
* Some 80 percent of outstanding U.S. mortgages are prime, while 14 percent are subprime and 6 percent fall into the near-prime category. These numbers, however, mask the explosive growth of nonprime mortgages. Subprime and near-prime loans shot up from 9 percent of newly originated securitized mortgages in 2001 to 40 percent in 2006
The nonprime boom introduced practices that made it easier to obtain loans. Some mortgages required little or no proof of income; others needed little or no down payment. Homebuyers could take out a simultaneous second, or piggyback, mortgage at the time of purchase, make interest-only payments for up to 15 years, skip payments by reducing equity or, in some cases, obtain a mortgage that exceeded the home's value.
* As problems began to emerge in late 2006, investors realized they had purchased nonprime RMBS with overly optimistic expectations of loan quality. Much of their misjudgment plausibly stemmed from the difficulty of forecasting default losses based on the short history of nonprime loans.
Subprime loan problems had surfaced just before and at the start of the 2001 recession but then rapidly retreated from 2002 to 2005 as the economy recovered. This pre-2006 pattern suggested that as long as unemployment remained low, so, too, would default and delinquency rates.
This interpretation ignored two other factors that had helped alleviate subprime loan problems earlier in the decade. First, this was a period of rapidly escalating home prices. Subprime borrowers who encountered financial problems could either borrow against their equity to make house payments or sell their homes to settle their debts. Second, interest rates declined significantly in the early 2000s. This helped lower the base rate to which adjustable mortgage rates were indexed, thereby limiting the increase when initial, teaser rates ended.
Favorable home-price and interest rate developments likely led models that were overly focused on unemployment as a driver of problem loans to underestimate the risk of nonprime mortgages. Indeed, swings in home-price appreciation and interest rates may also explain why prime and subprime loan quality have trended together in the 2000s. This can be seen once we account for the fact that past-due rates—the percentage of mortgages delinquent or in some stage of foreclosure—typically run five times higher on subprime loans (Chart 3). When the favorable home-price and interest rate factors reversed, the past-due rate rose markedly, despite continued low unemployment.
* Failure to appreciate the risks of nonprime loans prompted lenders to overly ease credit standards. The result was a huge jump in origination shares for subprime and near-prime mortgages.
Compared with conventional prime loans in 2006, average down payments were lower, at 6 percent for subprime mortgages and 12 percent for near-prime loans. The relatively small down payments often entailed borrowers' taking out piggyback loans to pay the portion of their home prices above the 80 percent covered by first-lien mortgages.
Another form of easing facilitated the rapid rise of mortgages that didn't require borrowers to fully document their incomes. In 2006, these low- or no-doc loans comprised 81 percent of near-prime, 55 percent of jumbo, 50 percent of subprime and 36 percent of prime securitized mortgages.
The easier lending standards coincided with a sizeable rise in adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Of the mortgages originated in 2006 that were later securitized, 92 percent of subprime, 68 percent of near-prime, 43 percent of jumbo and 23 percent of prime mortgages had adjustable rates. Now, with rates on one-year adjustable and 30-year fixed mortgages close, ARMs' market share has dwindled to 15 percent, less than half its recent peak of 35 percent in 2004.
* In the absence of home-price appreciation, many households are finding it difficult to refinance their way out of adjustable-rate mortgages obtained at the height of the housing boom. Larger mortgage payments could exacerbate delinquencies and foreclosures, especially with interest rate resets expected to remain high for the next year. This suggests mortgage quality will likely continue to fall off for some time.
posted by Mike Larson at
10:57 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home