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Re: They're Baaaack! Zero-Down, Subprime Mortgages [Brownie28]
Brownie28 wrote:
Are these government-approved loans bought by Fannie and Freddie? What an absolute travesty it'd be if we're slipping into exactly what caused the 2007 crisis.


It depends on the size of the mortgage loan, because Fannie, Freddie and the other GSEs (government-sponsored enterprises) don't generally buy jumbo or non-conforming mortgages. But with a conforming mortgage loan limit in high-cost counties of up to $679,650 ($453,100 in "regular" counties) there are still plenty of large-size mortgage loans that can be bought up by the GSEs and then aggregated with other mortgage loans and turned into mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) for sale to Wall Street investors on the secondary mortgage market (to governments, pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and the like).

A zero-down subprime mortgage is pretty risky paper in my opinion, especially if the MBS is comprised of thousands of these kinds of loans. I'm also guessing there have been additional financial safeguards put into place since the 2007/2008 housing market collapse, in hopes of preventing a repeat once the economy turns south and folks begin defaulting in large numbers on those loans yet again. But how much of this paper is floating around currently? And how much will be created in the future, as politicians and government continue to push the idea of a "right" to home ownership for everyone, regardless of whether or not everyone can actually handle the responsibility of such ownership?

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
Last edited by: big kahuna: Oct 14, 18 23:45

Edit Log:

  • Post edited by big kahuna (Dawson Saddle) on Oct 14, 18 23:45