Advertisement

Story of the week: tighter credit

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

We are in the middle of a big, complicated story -- the popping of a credit bubble that supported the biggest housing boom of our times. And this was an important week in that story. One after another, big financial institutions tightened credit every so slightly. A bunch of little pieces of news added up to a big story, and Blown Mortgage has an excellent summary of those pieces:
--Option One announced that it was no longer offering the two-year fixed ARM (2/28’s), and other big lenders followed suit. ‘The 2/28 train is officially dead.’
--Countrywide cancels its 2/28.
--Argent Mortgage cancels its 2/28.
--Washington Mutual cancels its 2/28 and 3/27 loans.
--And finally, bigger news from Washington Mutual: ‘In an interview, Chief Executive Kerry Killinger said that effective immediately, Seattle-based WaMu will require full documentation of income and assets from prospective subprime borrowers, eliminating riskier ‘stated income’ loans.

Comments? Thoughts?

Advertisement