Builders are eyeing the next wave of potential home buyers -- the so-called millennials -- but whether this rising generation will embrace big mortgage debt remains an open question.
These 95 million people outnumber their baby-boomer parents by ...
Competition is generally viewed as a good thing, in the U.S. at least. Hence, advertisements that create an image of powerful banks having to compete among themselves for the favor of individual mortgage borrowers creates a generally favorable ...
In a recent column, I pointed out that mortgage lenders today can make a loan with only 3 percent down to a borrower with a steady job but a credit score of only 570, and have it insured by the Federal Housing Administration. But lenders can't or ...
Think subprime mortgages have gone away? Think again. We have a subprime market lurking within the Federal Housing Administration, with features that are eerily similar to those of the private market that went into hyper-drive in the 2000s and ...
Even as federal regulators recently cracked down on loose mortgage lending, they hoped that credit unions and community banks would serve as a haven for marginal borrowers.
Such neighborhood institutions know their customers, the theory goes, so ...
Why did Jones pay more for her mortgage than Smith? One possible reason is that her mortgage had features that increase risk to the lender, which charged a higher price to compensate. I call these "risk factors." Potential borrowers ought to know ...