Robert Thomson's Articles in Mortgage

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  • Mortgages Were Viewed as Option Contracts by Speculators
    The options market is a speculator's paradise. Buying and selling options contracts requires a knowledge of how they work and what gives them value. During the Great Housing Bubble, residential mortgages took on the characteristics of options contracts. This was not by design. The practices of lenders created this problem, and in the end, it cost lenders and investors a great deal of money.
  • Mortgage Interest Rates - How Are They Determined?
    Mortgage interest rates are the single-most important factor determining the borrowing power of a potential house buyer. When rates are very low, a borrower can service a large amount of debt with a relatively small payment, and when interest rates are very high, a borrower can service a small amount of debt with a relatively large payment.
  • People Will Not Want Mortgage Debt in the Future
    The next big psychological change to impact housing will be a change in homebuyer's relationship with debt. When prices were going up, and nobody thought they were going to have to pay the debt off themselves, people borrowed all they could. Once prices stopped going up, and people were faced with paying off these enormous debts, the appetite for borrowing cooled significantly.
  • The Key to Housing Affordability Is Not Mortgage Finance
    The difficult problem with affordable housing is how to provide it without making it unaffordable. Finance is not the answer. We all want affordable housing. There are numerous government programs designed to provide low-cost rental and ownership properties to people in all walks of life. Lenders, builders, realtors and buyers all benefit from affordable housing because affordability means an increase in transaction volumes and more money into the pockets of those dependant on the real estate market.
  • Housing Bubble Credit Expansion - Credit Inflated the Housing Bubble
    The Great Housing Bubble was inflated by a massive expansion of credit and the influx of capital into residential mortgages. The expansion of credit took four forms: lower interest rates, lowering or eliminating qualification requirements, different amortization methods, and higher allowable debt-to-income ratios.
  • Credit Crunch - Why Did We Have It?
    In 2007, the financial markets were abuzz with talk of a "credit crunch." It was portrayed as some unusual and unpredictable outside force like an asteroid impact or a cold winter storm. However, it was not unexpected, and it was not caused by any outside force. The credit crunch began because borrowers were unable to make payments on the loans they were given. When lenders started losing money, they stopped lending money: a credit crunch.
  • Mortgage Interest Rates and House Prices
    Mortgage interest rates are determined in an open market and are subject to the forces of supply and demand. These rates are the sum of three main components: riskless rate of return, risk premium, and inflation expectation. The Great Housing Bubble was characterized by historic lows in the federal funds rate, risk premiums and inflation expectations which resulted in the very low mortgage interest rates. These low mortgage interest rates allowed people to finance large sums of money, and these larger bids helped inflate the housing bubble.
  • Mortgage Equity Withdrawal - Are Americans Addicted to It?
    Much of the money homeowners borrowed fueled consumer spending and reinforced poor financial management techniques. It was common during the bubble rally for people to run up enormous credit card bills then refinance every year and pay them off. It is foolish enough to finance consumer spending, but it is even more foolish to pay for this spending over the 30-year term of a typical mortgage. The consumptive value fades quickly, but the debt endures for a very long time.
  • Judicial and Non-Judicial Foreclosure - What Is the Difference?
    When a borrower cannot repay a loan, the lender may or may not be able to sue the borrower to collect any shortfall. The key difference is whether or not the loan is classified as a recourse loan or a non-recourse loan. If the loan is recourse, meaning the lender can go after any shortfall, the lender still must go through a judicial foreclosure in order to collect the deficiency.
  • Mortgage Equity Withdrawal is a Cultural Pathology
    Mortgage Equity Withdrawal or MEW is the process of obtaining cash through refinancing residential real estate using the accumulated equity as collateral for the loan. This is a cultural pathology because it is not sustainable. Many people became addicted to using their houses as an ATM machine, and when prices fell, these people lost their homes in foreclosure.
  • Stated-Income Loans - How Common Were They?
    One unique phenomenon of the Great Housing Bubble was the utilization of stated-income loans, also known as "liar loans" because most people were not truthful when stating their income. When house prices were going up, greed motivated many people to buy homes to capture appreciation. Actually having the income to qualify for a loan was a limitation to participating in the financial mania. Stated-income loan programs eliminated this barrier and allowed people to borrow as much as they wanted without concern for home much money they made to cover the payments.
  • The Interest-Only, Adjustable-Rate Mortgage is Very Risky
    The interest-only, adjustable-rate mortgage (IO ARM) became popular early in the Great Housing Bubble. When fixed-rate mortgage payments were too large for buyers to afford, they turned to IO ARMs as an affordability product. Unfortunately, these mortgage products are not stable because at some point, payments increase, and the borrowers often default.
  • Adjustable Rate Mortgage Payment Recast - What is It?
    Interest-only and negative amortization payments cannot go on forever. At some point, the loan balance must be paid in full. For all adjustable rate mortgages, there is a mandatory recast after a fixed period of time where the loan reverts to a conventionally amortizing loan to be paid over the remaining portion of a 30 year term.
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