Finally, the savings and loans regulator has discovered what every else has known for years - people have lied to get mortgages. Now, he recognises that this will make the housing crash worse.
And this guy draws a salary? What was he doing back in 2005? No wonder we are such a mess.
April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Cheating on mortgage applications is so widespread and so seldom punished that it's fueling an increase in foreclosures that will prolong the housing slump, said Robert W. Russell, counsel to the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which oversees savings and loans.
Borrowers and brokers commit fraud when they exaggerate the applicant's income, qualifying the borrower for a home he otherwise couldn't afford. Such fraud robbed lenders of an estimated $1 billion last year, according to data collected by the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Misstatements about employment and income are being made every day," Russell said. ``The brokers are just putting down on paper what the underwriters would require. There are borrowers providing false information as well.''
Loans that require little or no documentation of income soared to $276 billion, or 46 percent, of all subprime mortgages last year from $30 billion in 2001, according to estimates from New York-based analysts at Credit Suisse Group. Homebuyers with those loans defaulted at a 12.6 percent rate in February, compared with 1.5 percent of fully documented prime mortgages, said San Francisco-based First American LoanPerformance, a mortgage consulting group.
A 2006 study cited by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute showed that almost 60 percent of stated income loans were exaggerated by at least 50 percent.
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