HUD has launched a program called Blueprint for Access pressuring banks to lend to anyone with less than perfect credit. Weve seen this movie before and know how it ends. Badly. The blueprint, posted on HUDs website, directs lenders to reduce credit overlays and target 13 million people with credit scores ranging from 580 to 680 — that is, subprime borrowers. Shutting these consumers out of the market hurts American families and undermines our efforts to build more stable communities, create pathways to the middle class, and increase homeownership opportunities for minority and low-wealth borrowers, asserts the document, which features a black family standing in front of a new home with a SOLD sign. The easy credit campaign, headed by HUD chief and Clinton retread Shawn Donovan, echoes his former boss ill-fated National Homeownership Strategy. In 1995, Clinton launched an ambitious plan to bring 8 million first-time buyers, mostly minorities, into the housing system: There are millions of people who believe home ownership is out of reach. A down payment is still out of reach. They are locked out by rigid restrictions or by a homebuying system just too difficult. .. . Well make home ownership more accessible. So he ordered HUD, as well as the Treasury and Justice departments, to crack down on lenders hewing to rigid restrictions, aka prudent mortgage underwriting standards. Two years later, the subprime housing bubble started. Ten years later, the bubble burst. Now his protege, Donovan, is doubling down on those precrisis mistakes. news.investors/ibd-editorials/051914-701409-hud-lending-blueprint-calls-for-13-million-subprime-loans.htm
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 23:58:06 +0000