Monday, January 05, 2009

The Law of Unintended Consequences

So politicians have been working for years to push lenders into doing home loans for minorities.

How did that worked out for those folks?

California Rep. Joe Baca has long pushed legislation he said would "open the doors to the American Dream" for first-time home buyers in his largely Hispanic district. For many of them, those doors have slammed shut, quickly and painfully.

Mortgage lenders flooded Mr. Baca's San Bernardino, Calif., district with loans that often didn't require down payments, solid credit ratings or documentation of employment. Now, many of the Hispanics who became homeowners find themselves mired in the national housing mess. Nearly 9,200 families in his district have lost their homes to foreclosure.

For years, immigrants to the U.S. have viewed buying a home as the ultimate benchmark of success. Between 2000 and 2007, as the Hispanic population increased, Hispanic homeownership grew even faster, increasing by 47%, to 6.1 million from 4.1 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Over that same period, homeownership nationally grew by 8%. In 2005 alone, mortgages to Hispanics jumped by 29%, with expensive nonprime mortgages soaring 169%, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

An examination of that borrowing spree by The Wall Street Journal reveals that it wasn't simply the mortgage market at work. It was fueled by a campaign by low-income housing groups, Hispanic lawmakers, a congressional Hispanic housing initiative, mortgage lenders and brokers, who all were pushing to increase homeownership among Latinos.

Many pounds ago, I worked as a credit analyst for a bank. And there's a reason that bank's developed those crazy qualification standards like down payments, documentation of income, etc...

Because it works.

As soon as these jerk off politicians push to distort markets, this is what we have left. People living as renters with the added benefit of not being able to qualify for a mortgage in the future.

Some deal..... Do you think we can get a liberal some where to own this as their legacy to the mortgage crisis?

more.....

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