Originally Posted by
AaronX
The issues with the credit markets can largly be broken down into 3 areas.
1) Greed - it generated fraud from both the banking aspect AND the borrowing aspect. There were banks red lining borrowers into higher rate ARM programs and steering them into something they could not afford because it made them more commission! The opposite is also true. There were borrowers defrauding banks with straw buyers, inflated appraisals, house flipping and buying every home as a primary residence. There was even a company on the internet advertizing "novelty" income documents. These were largly used to show you made more income then you did.
2) Greed - from the selling and servicing end. The banks like AMC, Novastar, Loan giant et al figured there would always be another sucker (bank) financing the home later. The market crashed and the "suckers" dried up. Once the home was off their books it wasn't their problem anymore.
3) Morals (or lack thereof) - people often would ask me to qualify them for homes more than they could afford and I wouldn't do it. Others would. There were programs 2 yrs ago that if you had 700 credit and could come up with 5% to put down (from non-verified sources even; drug money or whatever) you could buy a home with no verification of employment or income or assets. It was the good old credit score and pulse loan. Just because you can does not mean you SHOULD people need to learn this and see point 2.