The Housing Crisis Origins

The Housing Crisis Origins

Dr. John Lott has a piece that appeared on FoxNews.com on September 18, 2008, that explains some of the origins of the current housing crisis. At some of the items that he mentions I have seen verified in other places:

The stock market has fallen dramatically from its peak a year ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has declined by about 25 percent, a significant drop, though not anywhere near as large as the 36 percent drop that occurred over two months from August to October 1987. Few would argue, though, that the financial market is not in a mess.

Meanwhile the economy has kept growing. In the second quarter of this year from April to June, GDP grew at a fairly fast 3.3 percent. For the first half of this year GDP has grown at about 2.2 percent, near the historical average. Obviously some sectors of the economy have been doing well, while others, such as housing, have been in a real mess.
With the government takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as other bankruptcies in the financial sector, there are a lot of questions. The strangest fact is that the housing sector is having such problems when the economy otherwise has been doing well. Why have there been so many defaults when the economy has not been in a recession? Defaults have been at historically high rates despite reasonable economic growth and a relatively low unemployment rate of 6.1 percent.
Some, such as James H. Carr, the CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, argue that the high default rates are a result of "unfair and deceptive practices, steering customers to high price loans . . . High upfront payments made it so that they couldn't later pay their mortgages."
Surprisingly, research done by economists a decade ago in 1998, particularly by Professors Ted Day and Stan Liebowitz at the University of Texas at Dallas, predicted the current problems and tried to warn people of a different cause. Starting during the early 1990s, mortgage-underwriting standards have been consistently weakened. Many of the names involved in the forefront of those changes, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well Countrywide and Bear Stearns, , have been the most prominent financial entities to become insolvent.
Others did not share these economists' concerns. The Wall Street Journal quoted Congressman Barney Frank in 2003 as criticizing Greg Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, "because he is worried about the tiny little matter of safety and soundness rather than ‘concern about housing.'"
The changes in underwriting standards were pushed to accomplish what many called a "noble goal" -- an increase in home ownership among poor and minority Americans -- but the changes created a time bomb that was set off as soon as property values began to decline. The new rules involved eliminating verification of income or assets, little assurance of the ability to pay the mortgage, and virtually eliminating down payments.