Subprime Mortgage Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Subprime Mortgage Crisis - Essay Example This all lies in the fundamental of economics that teaches us that diversification is king and solution for reducing financial risk. It has now come back to haunt us. What can we learn from this That Harry Markowitz, father of financial risk management, and Thomas Friedman, father of globalization should maybe start writing about the correlation of such economics! Unfortunately, it is not that simple. But before we unleash an economic debate on this painful economic downturn we should intellectually dissect the individuals and the players responsible for the causes and facts that have resulted in the inevitable financial depression in the real estate industry. "It started with the real, it will end will real estate." "Sub-Prime lending typically has been characterized as lending at relatively costly interest rates and fees to credit impaired or otherwise high risk borrowers." (Lax, Manti, Raca, & Zorn, 2004). Subprime loans are among the newly popular mortgage products, such as interest-only loans, for people with strained budgets, including first-time buyers. Homeowners increasingly use them to refinance and consolidate household debts when their credit scores fall in the wake of bankruptcy, high medical bills, or other setbacks. (Blanton, 2005). It is generally believed that the subprime borrowers emerge due to lack of the good credit history on their back and since there number grew historically therefore banks and financial institutions by spotting the opportunity started lending to them at higher interest rates due to the perceived risks involved in these subprime loans. Not only these subprime borrowers pay higher interest rates but they also pay higher upfront fees also at the time of boo king their loans. Due to this profitable alterative, financial institutions take the risk and lend to those customers who would otherwise can not qualify for obtaining loans from the banking channels in the ordinary course of the business. In nutshell, we can say that subprime lending is lending to those who do not deserve it. US Housing Bubble Most of the subprime lending is made into the mortgages market of the Banks. Studies suggest that So-called subprime loans have helped boost US homeownership to a record 69 percent of households. They are being tapped by borrowers in all income ranges, who struggle with poor credit ratings stemming from modest incomes or excessive credit card or other debts. In Massachusetts, subprime loans, fueled by refinancing, have grown from 1.6 percent of mortgages in 2000 to 12.3 percent today. (Blanton, 2005). Apart from that, the surge in the mortgage market was a result of generous monetary policy stance adapted by FED in order to ease the recession caused by the dot com bubble. Due to this reason, the interest rates were lowered by FED. This reduction in interest rates also induced financial institutions to lower the interest rates on the mortgages also. With the lowering interest rates, the demand for the homes increased which ultimately raised the prices for the new homes. In order to capture this rise in the property market, many financial institutions started easing off their standards to bring in more and more customers. This loosening in the standards allowed those borrowers to obtain mortgage loans who were otherwise not eligible to obtain the loans. Once these loans were obtained and subsequently securitized by the issuing financial