Silly Little Country

The Bailout Mentality

A very nice analysis of the problem of underwater mortgages, where the home'owner' owes more than the current value of the house, documenting at one vital point why the lender does not simply do the rational thing and allow a significant principal writedown.

Bondholders today anticipate making as little as $70,000 on a foreclosed home like that in our example. But consider how much might change simply by writing down the principal from $280,000 to $160,000, 20 percent below the current appraised value of the house. The homeowner might become eligible to refinance the $160,000 loan into a government loan at 5 percent, which would be impossible on the $280,000 mortgage.

Even if the couple couldn’t refinance and still had to pay the original rate of 9 percent, the payments would be reduced to $14,400 a year, considerably less than the $25,000 now owed, and no longer wildly more than renting would cost. And the couple would have $40,000 of equity in the house: a reason to continue to pay, or to spruce up the house and find a buyer. Either way, the original bondholders would have a very good chance of making $160,000, instead of the $70,000 expected now. Everybody wins.

If writing down principal is such a good idea, why aren’t banks and servicers (the companies that manage the pools of mortgages that have been turned into investment vehicles) doing it now? Many banks are not marking their mortgages down to the foreclosure values the market foresees, hoping instead that we taxpayers will buy out mortgages at near their original inflated value —another government bailout.

This is not the only reason listed - turns out there are issues between servicers and bondholders, and some others, but this one is bad enough.
The authors have a dim view of the current Obama mortgage plan.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:28 PM