Writing in Inman, mortgage broker Lou Barnes laments that “six years after mortgage misbehavior stopped cold, we still do not have a national understanding of what happened, laboring in ignorance, score-settling, and the entirely successful effort by Wall Street investment bankers to dodge accountability.” Barnes notes that, “Pre-bubble, every mortgage bank and broker was contractually obliged to repurchase any loan with deficient underwriting, whether it defaulted or not.” and that, “The Wall Street banks did not just buy bad loans 2000-2007; they designed and vacuumed them.” The broker lampoons, “The containment of QM/QRM damage is not an easing of currently overly tight standards, just turning away from more tightening. In blackest comedy, the regulators cited as a principal reason to retreat that credit is already far too tight.” Lobbing a few Tomahawks, Barnes says, will only cause a pause in the rate adjustments. What will make a difference for mortgages? “Six regulators agreed that the central mortgage provisions of Dodd-Frank are bad ideas.” ##
