Today's quote comes to us via Bloomberg:
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve tightened its mortgage rules by requiring lenders to determine a borrower's ability to repay and barring other practices that led to the collapse of the U.S. housing market....
HT: Calculated RISK
UPDATE-There are many ways to distinguish between journalists and bloggers, here's the WSJ's MarketBeat blog take on the same story:
By this point it has become difficult to keep track of the number of horses running amok in the countryside while the barn door rests comfortably off its hinges. So add one more to the pasture. Today the Federal Reserve Board unanimously approved a final rule that will help protect consumers from deceptive mortgage practices. Just in time, too. The rule adds protections for those who have higher-priced loans, and it would require creditors to verify borrowers’ income and assets and to establish escrow accounts for all first-lien mortgages. Lenders are also now allowed to rely solely on a home’s value to assess a borrowers’ ability to repay loans. In addition, the rule is supposed to ban certain misleading or deceptive advertising practices. All of this is necessary. All of this is prudent. All of this would have been helpful a while ago.
