REFinBlog

January 30, 2013

Strategies to Improve the Housing Market

Boston Consulting prepared this Strategies to Improve the Housing Market report on behalf of The Pew Charitable Trusts.  The report focuses “on practical solutions that can readily be implemented by industry, agencies, and regulators working within existing mandates, or by … Continue reading →

January 29, 2013

Empirical Evidence of Predatory Steering in the Mortgage Market

Agarwal and Evanoff have released a draft of Loan Product Steering in Mortgage Markets.  They sought to determine whether there was empirical support for the frequent anecdotes of credit steering in the literature about predatory lending.  They find such support. … Continue reading →

Federal Reserve Report on the 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage

Fuster and Vickery have posted Securitization and the Fixed-Rate Mortgage, a FRB of NY Staff Report.  This paper brings some empirical research to the debate over the proper fate of the 30 year mortgage.  Commentators are sharply divided over whether … Continue reading →

January 28, 2013

GAO Report on Challenges for Financial Regulatory Reform

The GAO has issued a report, Financial Regulatory Reform:  Regulators Have Faced Challenges Finalizing Key Reforms and Unaddressed Areas Pose Potential Risks.  The report notes that kolyokbirodalom.hu/site/ A variety of challenges have affected regulators’ progress in executing rulemaking requirements intended … Continue reading →

January 23, 2013

Levitin Gives Overview of CFPB

The extraordinarily prolific Adam Levitin has posted The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:  An Introduction.  He concludes that the CFPB faces a constant challenge in terms of measuring and then balancing the consumer protection benefits from regulation with the costs of … Continue reading →

January 22, 2013

CFPB Issues Rules on High-Cost Mortgages

The CFPB issued rules for high-cost mortgages (those with high interest rates and/or points and fees).  Importantly, the rules now apply to most mortgages, including purchase money mortgages; refis; home equity loans; and home equity lines of credit. High-cost loans … Continue reading →

CFPB Issues Rule on Loan Originator Compensation

Distorted mortgage broker incentives were one of the big problems during the Subprime Boom.  Indeed, many lenders have since stopped outsourcing loan originator to mortgage brokers because a lot of the terrible loans they were stuck with had been originated … Continue reading →