Is throwing money at the mortgage market the solution?
You may have noticed over the last month many countries have past bills in their governments to inject substantial amounts of cash into their banking system. They have done this on the understanding that all the bad loans also known as toxic debt is weakening the institutions and rendering us unable to borrow money so leaving us all worse off as a result.
So the big question is will injecting this money actually get the banks lending again and if they do, will it have any effect on us, the general public. In answering this question and dealing with the issues here I can only comment on our particular situation here in the United Kingdom. Whilst it may be similar in other parts of the world I cannot comment due to the fact that I am unfamiliar as to how their market works, so what may have an effect here may not be the case anywhere else.
The general public is under the impression that the credit crunch is due to the banks not having enough money to lend. Logic would then dictate that by giving the banks more money the problem is resolved. Unfortunately this is rather far from the truth. The lack of money to lend is only the tip of the iceberg. Banks have been burned by the bad debt accrued over the last few years and are therefore now much more cautious about lending again. Their careless actions in the past will prove much more difficult to rectify in times to come.
The main result and contributory factor to the current financial predicament is that of house prices, and house prices are not only falling but are set to continue to fall for the foreseeable future. Consequently lenders are finding that they have to tighten all their criteria not least in the area of loan to value LTV, that is the amount of money that is lent based on the value of the property. Most lenders during 2007 lent up to 95% LTV some lent 100% LTV and in some cases they went as high as 125%LTV.
While the market is buoyant most annalists will agree this type of lending is OK. Think about it if you lend on a 100,000 house 125% which results in a loan of 125,000 and the house price rises over the next three years at a rate of 10% per annum, which was not unheard of. Then your LTV in three years time would only be 93% this is alright from a lending point of view and what would be considered an acceptable risk.
The problem now is that rather than rising by 10% per annum the housing prices are in fact dropping by that much, and they are set to drop even more. If you consider that drop, if a lender was to give 85,000 on a 100,000 property which continued to drop in value, in 3 years the LTV could rise to 118%, which in these turbulent times is simply not acceptable. This is why lenders are now slow to lend out quantities much over 85%.
So what does this mean to the bailout and the future of the market? Well in my opinion, and I may be right or wrong only time will tell, I think that the bailout will have little effect. Yes the lenders are under a commitment to lend at the levels of 2007 during 2009, but if you understand what has been said in my previous paragraphs they cant lend at the high loan to values. Most of the urgent cases for lending are the people coming out of rates that have been arrange in the last five years, these people are going to be pushing the LTVs due to the current house price falls.
You also need to take into account that a lot of people in the last few years have acquired mortgages on a self certification basis. These sort of mortgages are now considered high risk for lenders and so are mostly unavailable, and even if they are available they will be at greatly reduced LTVs, so what options do these people have to chose from?
In conclusion, although the cash injections can only be welcomed as a step in the right direction, I fear that there will be little knock on effect whilst housing prices continue to plummet and lenders fail to meet the level of lending that was rife before 2008. It seems more likely that the money will be stored up for the future. This will unfortunately create a catch-22 situation where the prices continue to fall because of the low LTVs and the tight lending criteria, in turn making the lenders more nervous about lending. It seems to me that the only way out will be for someone to bite the bullet and take the risks again at lending, even taking into account the possible risks involved.
So the big question is will injecting this money actually get the banks lending again and if they do, will it have any effect on us, the general public. In answering this question and dealing with the issues here I can only comment on our particular situation here in the United Kingdom. Whilst it may be similar in other parts of the world I cannot comment due to the fact that I am unfamiliar as to how their market works, so what may have an effect here may not be the case anywhere else.
The general public is under the impression that the credit crunch is due to the banks not having enough money to lend. Logic would then dictate that by giving the banks more money the problem is resolved. Unfortunately this is rather far from the truth. The lack of money to lend is only the tip of the iceberg. Banks have been burned by the bad debt accrued over the last few years and are therefore now much more cautious about lending again. Their careless actions in the past will prove much more difficult to rectify in times to come.
The main result and contributory factor to the current financial predicament is that of house prices, and house prices are not only falling but are set to continue to fall for the foreseeable future. Consequently lenders are finding that they have to tighten all their criteria not least in the area of loan to value LTV, that is the amount of money that is lent based on the value of the property. Most lenders during 2007 lent up to 95% LTV some lent 100% LTV and in some cases they went as high as 125%LTV.
While the market is buoyant most annalists will agree this type of lending is OK. Think about it if you lend on a 100,000 house 125% which results in a loan of 125,000 and the house price rises over the next three years at a rate of 10% per annum, which was not unheard of. Then your LTV in three years time would only be 93% this is alright from a lending point of view and what would be considered an acceptable risk.
The problem now is that rather than rising by 10% per annum the housing prices are in fact dropping by that much, and they are set to drop even more. If you consider that drop, if a lender was to give 85,000 on a 100,000 property which continued to drop in value, in 3 years the LTV could rise to 118%, which in these turbulent times is simply not acceptable. This is why lenders are now slow to lend out quantities much over 85%.
So what does this mean to the bailout and the future of the market? Well in my opinion, and I may be right or wrong only time will tell, I think that the bailout will have little effect. Yes the lenders are under a commitment to lend at the levels of 2007 during 2009, but if you understand what has been said in my previous paragraphs they cant lend at the high loan to values. Most of the urgent cases for lending are the people coming out of rates that have been arrange in the last five years, these people are going to be pushing the LTVs due to the current house price falls.
You also need to take into account that a lot of people in the last few years have acquired mortgages on a self certification basis. These sort of mortgages are now considered high risk for lenders and so are mostly unavailable, and even if they are available they will be at greatly reduced LTVs, so what options do these people have to chose from?
In conclusion, although the cash injections can only be welcomed as a step in the right direction, I fear that there will be little knock on effect whilst housing prices continue to plummet and lenders fail to meet the level of lending that was rife before 2008. It seems more likely that the money will be stored up for the future. This will unfortunately create a catch-22 situation where the prices continue to fall because of the low LTVs and the tight lending criteria, in turn making the lenders more nervous about lending. It seems to me that the only way out will be for someone to bite the bullet and take the risks again at lending, even taking into account the possible risks involved.
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