The Role of the Community Reinvestment Act on the 2007 Housing Bubble Collapse
The reality of the worst financial crisis in the last 80 years has led to wide speculation of its causes. While a plethora of theories have been offered, none have been as persistent and as patently false as the assertion that the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 played a significant role in the housing bubble collapse. Critics of the Community Investment Act (CRA) argue that by pushing banks to meet the credit needs of low-income borrowers, the law forced lending institutions to take on riskier loans that proved to be fiscally irresponsible. The securitization and speculation of these low quality loans led to the housing bubble collapse and the wider financial crisis. This argument is subject to a number of problems, namely: the CRA never mandated lower lending standards, the CRA was enacted over a quarter of a century before the housing crash took place, none of the hundreds of banks that collapsed were subject to CRA legislation, CRA loans had a historically low level of default, and CRA loans comprised an extremely low amount of subprime loans during the relevant period of the crisis. While the CRA may have played some small part in the collapse of the housing bubble and subsequent financial crisis, it is clear that its effect was negligible. There are simply too many mitigating factors that limit the extent to which the CRA could have adversely affected the housing market for the theory to be plausible.
The Community Reinvestment Act is a United States federal law passed in 1977 formulated to encourage lending by depository institutions in low- and moderate-income areas. The law was largely designed to combat redlining, a practice of systema...
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... could have such an impact after three decades of virtually innocuous existence. Pundits point to the 1995 CRA regulatory changes passed by congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. These changes strengthened the standards by which CRA regulators were able to judge banks on how well they were serving the credit needs of their local community. However in 2004, President George Bush repealed most of these changes, and weakened the CRA to where it had been in the early-90’s. It is simply implausible that the CRA had no negative ramifications until 30 years after it was passed. If it were a substantial cause of horrific lending standards, the financial crisis would have occurred much earlier than 2007. There must have been other, much larger contributing factors that arose in the 30 years after the CRA was enacted that led to the housing crash.
The housing market is very unique as unlike other goods and services, houses have permanence, it is a fixed location good causing the rules of supply and demand to be taken to new extremes. In the case of the Toronto housing market we can view in almost real time the role supply and demand play on he ever increasing house prices, additionally the fundamental economic issue of scarcity is made extremely apparent by the limited size of the city of Toronto.
Since the Great Depression, our economy has not seen such devastating downturns. As a result, many of us have lost our jobs and subsequently, our homes. The current foreclosure crisis is affecting 1 out of every 5 Americans, Jonathan Lain (How to Solve the Foreclosure Crisis). So now the focus is on finding ways to solve the growing epidemic of foreclosures. I propose that the government fund a non-profit organization, whose mission is to reduce the number of foreclosures among the American people. Furthermore, although the initial funding would come from the government, as a non-profit, the agency would be able to obtain grants and hold fundraising events in support of their cause. The non-profit organization titled, Brick-by-Brick, Inc. (B-b-B) would ensure all homeowners have mortgage insurance, educate potential homeowners via workshops; housing, and provide financial assistance.
A majority of mortgage defaults that Americans used were on subprime mortgage loans, which were high-interest-rate loans lent to people with high risk credit rates (Brue). Despite knowing the risks, the Federal government encouraged major banks to lend out these loans to buyers, in hopes, of broadening ho...
Another reason why we saw the price of houses rise was due to the low
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law by President Obama on February 21, 2009. The law had three major goals which were all aimed at stimulating a sluggish US economy. The first goal was to create new jobs and save existing ones by tax credits for hiring new employees. The second goal was to spur economic activity and investment in long term growth by increasing the amount of business asset that could be acquired by companies while allowing for immediate deductions for the cost of the assets as well as numerous tax credits for individuals and businesses. The third goal was to foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending by requiring recipients of recovery act funds to post acknowledgements on the Recovery.gov website.
Our nation today has become spoiled with instant gratification. Loans and the borrowing system have given the idea that patience is no longer a virtue and that saving is no longer necessary. Material wealth is increased, but so is the idea of false wealth. People have become so bloated with it; therefore they take on more than they can afford. That is what has happened with our nation’s recent wave of foreclosures. Loans have led everyone to believe that they can own a home and it has omitted the practice of saving. That is where the beginning of the solution lies. Our nation’s people need to relearn the value of patience, therefore we need to learn how to start saving again because although loans may pave a way toward homeownership, it is not valued as much compared to someone who has saved for a home.
During 2008, America suffered one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression. The first indication that the economy was in danger was when the housing prices started to decline in 2006. Initially, it wasn’t seen as a threat. Realtors felt that the overheated market would safely return to a sustainable level. What they didn’t realize was that there was a dangerously high number of homeowners with questionable credit ratings who had loans for 100% and sometimes more of their home’s value. Banks resold these mortgages as part of mortgage-backed securities. It was originally thought that the problems with subprime mortgages would remain
The causes of the Great Recession all started as hundreds of billions of dollars was given to the United States abroad and financiers conceiving were to make a profit and what better way but the real estate market. Since the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and an expansion made in 1995 the than President Bush endorsed the program that created Option adjustable rate mortgages (nick-named “Pick-A-Pay”) to allow for bank to sell these options even though they were high risk (Conservapedia, 2013). The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977/95 is defined as to framework financial institutions, state and local governments, and community organizations to jointly promote banking services in the community” (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, n.d.). That being said, there were three individuals, and firms that contributed the most to the recession including Senator Charles Schumer D-NY, Fannie Mae, American Ins...
The "subprime crises" was one of the most significant financial events since the Great Depression and definitely left a mark upon the country as we remain upon a steady path towards recovering fully. The financial crisis of 2008, became a defining moment within the infrastructure of the US financial system and its need for restructuring. One of the main moments that alerted the global economy of our declining state was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14, 2008 and after this the economy began spreading as companies and individuals were struggling to find a way around this crisis. (Murphy, 2008) The US banking sector was first hit with a crisis amongst liquidity and declining world stock markets as well. The subprime mortgage crisis was characterized by a decrease within the housing market due to excessive individuals and corporate debt along with risky lending and borrowing practices. Over time, the market apparently began displaying more weaknesses as the global financial system was being affected. With this being said, this brings into question about who is actually to assume blame for this financial fiasco. It is extremely hard to just assign blame to one individual party as there were many different factors at work here. This paper will analyze how the stakeholders created a financial disaster and did nothing to prevent it as the credit rating agencies created an amount of turmoil due to their unethical decisions and costly mistakes.
The subprime mortgage crisis is an ongoing event that is affecting buyers who purchased homes in the early 2000s. The term subprime mortgage refers to the many home loans taken out during a housing bubble occurring on the US coast, from 2000-2005. The home loans were given at a subprime rate, and have now lead to extensive foreclosures on home loans, and people having to leave their homes because they can not afford the payments. (Chote) The cause and effect of this crisis can be broken down into five major reasons.
An argument can be made that someone should be held accountable for the subprime mortgage situation. The main focus now is to preventing a continuous meltdown. The first step to cure the situation is taking immediate and corrective action. Kevin Alexander Gray states “We‘ve got to do more to stem the tide of foreclosures and stabilize communities throughout the country,” (Gary, 2009). In order to thoroughly understand the impact this crisis has had on the economy, it will be important to look at what has really prompted this housing meltdown. The immediate cause or trigger of the crisis was the bursting of the United States hous...
“One out of every two hundred homes will be foreclosed every month, making 205,000 new families enter into foreclosure,” Mortgage Bankers Association. The housing industry in the United States is undergoing an unfortunate crisis. There are way too many homes being foreclosed, which cause a ripple of problems.
Affordable housing in the United States describes sheltering units with well-adjusted housing costs for those living on an average, median income. The phrase usually implies to applied rental or purchaser housing within the financial means of lower-income ranges specific to the demographics of any given area. However, affordable housing does not include those living in social housing owned by government and non-profit organizations. More specifically, the targeted range for housing affordability sets below 30 percent of a household's annual income, including all applicable taxes, utility costs and home owners insurance rates. If the mean income per household breaches the 30 percent mark, then the agreed status becomes labeled as "unaffordable" by most recognizable financial institutions.
The “bad” mortgages banks were writing, high interest rates, and world financial uncertainty were the main culprits to the financial crisis of 2008. “Some three years after the collapse of the financial industry, a bipartisan report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has determined that banks, regulators and credit agencies ...
Usually what persists is that’s how big money gets even bigger. The Federal Reserve staved off recession back in 2001 by slashing federal funds rate by six point five percent to as low as one percent in 2003. This in return caused jobless people who wanted to buy homes, got a chance with mortgages so low. This in return became a gold rush to lenders, who offer loans to people, and then sold it to debt collectors. “More home loans, more home buyers, more appreciation in home prices. It wasn 't long before things started to move just as the cheap money wanted them to.” (Investopedia). As this went along, the government started raising the interest rates of the home, gave turmoil to the home owners who still didn’t have enough to pay it off initially. Ownership peaked at seventy percent and which led to the forty percent decline in home prices. Many of the borrowers again couldn’t afford the high interest rates and started defaulting. “This caused 2007 to start with bad news from multiple sources. Every month, one subprime lender or another was filing for bankruptcy” (Investopedia). In 2008 the National Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which made Seven hundred billion to purchase assets. This marks that we as a nation couldn’t handle what the lenders had done, but no one was accountable