December 12, 2012
CRL Issues Report on State of Lending
The Center for Responsible Lending has issued a new report, The State of Lending in America and its Impact on U.S. Households. CRL, Cassandra-like, warned of an epidemic of millions of foreclosures at the height of the Subprime Boom, so they have a lot of street cred. And while they are consumer advocates, their research is solid.
Their policy recommendations include “the following key principles to ensure a robust and secure secondary market:”
• Government Guarantee: The U.S. government should provide an explicit, actuarially sound guarantee for mortgages in a future secondary market structure. This is an appropriate role to for the government to play in the event of a housing-market crash or market disruption. Discussion about the role of private capital in sharing losses is an important part of the conversation, but a catastrophic government guarantee is essential to the future of mortgage finance.
• Duty to Serve Entire Market: Mortgage finance reform should require secondary market entities that benefit from federal guarantees to serve all qualified homeowners, rather than preferred market segments. Without a duty to serve the entire market, lenders could recreate the dual credit market that characterized lending during the subprime crisis.
• Encourage Broad Market Access by All Lenders: The future mortgage finance system should encourage competition and further broad market access to the secondary capital markets for both small and large lenders. These goals should be met by establishing a cooperative secondary market model of one non-lender entity, owned in equal shares by member-users, that is able to issue guaranteed securities. Such a model of aligned interests will correct the shortcomings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s past and also prevent a further concentrated lending marketplace in the future. (53)
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