Shake companies in sub-prime lending market in the U.S. and the United Kingdom before exposing problems that consumers have faith in lenders. Many assume that if approved for a loan or mortgage it means that someone responsible felt they could afford it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Consumers are wrong about the reasons for many lenders, particularly sub-prime lenders to extend credit to people with less than perfect credit. Lenders are the companies that make money from the loans on behalf of others. An average loan officer is not a financial planner, and provides financial advice. They are trying to get your application check all the boxes must be approved by the mortgage lender so the broker may charge a commission for finding you and generating loan.
The issue of affordability barely enters the equation when approving a loan application. With lenders offering no documentation or self-certification loans may be surprised when a consumer can bend the truth a little in order to obtain the money they think will save a difficult financial situation or the house they want.
The loan authors sell their loans to a loan company that often a package of loans and sell them together in the food chain. It is not unusual for a new loan to go through two or three hands until the land in some bigger fish stock lending.
During the stage where the hope that a sub-prime loan is subject to a review of adequacy what actually happens in many cases is that everyone is looking the other way. The borrower is a little dodge numbers, the lender is pushing the envelope a little bit of everything and is pushed upstream.
Currently in the United States a kind of crisis is brewing in the mortgage market with sub-prime loans going bad faster than milk in the sun. In 2000 approximately 3% of loans originated in the U.S. sub-prime mortgages. In 2006 that figure was only about 13%.
Over the past six years lenders have smelled blood in the water and tried to exploit an area of the lending market which it believes are a lot of money. And I think they were right, if the U.S. economy remains strong and growing.
But with the housing market cooling and loans originated in the last year or so bad going as fast as they are written, some lenders have enjoyed strong growth in the sub-prime market, are finding that up to 19% of the loans are delinquent and in default.
And now, some of the lenders after the sub-prime market have been found insolvent. Waves of these small companies have gone bankrupt, with no fewer than 22 last week to seek protection through bankruptcy.
What makes this situation particularly frightening is that many of these new loans are originated or adjustable interest rate loans and interest rates creep even a little, many are in a situation where they are losing their homes.
The lesson to be learned from this story is that consumers should not rely solely on the approval of a lender. Must ensure that the proposed monthly loan payment will fit within the budget with room to spare.