What is the sub-prime mortgage crisis? Lenders and their mortgage originators steered borrowers who were short-sighted, gullible, unqualified, greedy or all of the above into adjustable rate loans which had extremely low starting interest rates. The problem or crisis is that the loans were designed to adjust to above market interest rates after a short period of time. The loans were attractive to borrowers who were looking for the lowest starting interest rate, to buyers who really could not afford the house they wanted to buy, to lenders who stacked extra closing costs and points into the loans and to investors who bought the loans knowing the low interest rates were only temporary. They all forgot that when something seems too good to be true, it probably isn't true.
When the interest rate on the loans adjusted upward, many homeowners saw their monthly payments increase by twenty, forty, or sixty percent and some extreme cases more than double. Coupled with a weak economy (or the perception that the economy is weak) in some parts of the country the rate adjustments led to a wave of mortgage foreclosures when borrowers couldn't make the higher payments. Lenders found themselves owning houses rather than the loans on them and investors in mortgage backed securities found that their investment turned out to be not very good.
So the crisis is real for people who are losing their homes, lenders who have an increasingly large inventory of homes to resell and to investors who lost money. It is a little hard to feel sorry for anyone involved in the crisis except for the homeowners or former homeowners who were mislead by the mortgage originators and did not have the proper advice or foresight to understand what their loans were going to do. The lenders, originators and investors were all sophisticated business people who made money, sometimes a lot of money, in the short term.
Why is this situation a crisis for a first time home buyer? The simple answer is that it is not a crisis. For people looking to buy their first home it can be an opportunity. The perception that the United States economy is weak is simply not true for many parts of the country. The basic rule of real estate: "location, location, location" definitely applies here. Even where the economy is troubled, many people have solid jobs and the inventory of foreclosed or about to be foreclosed homes is high.
The other main rule of real estate, supply and demand, means that the price of such homes is likely to be lower than comparable home in another area. Foreclosed homes are often not in the condition and lenders tend not to put the time and money into repairing them that a normal seller would. Most lenders and investors are no longer interested in making or owning sub-prime loans and even if some are, government regulators are watching closely so you probably do not have worry about being led into a bad loan.
Buying a home at a foreclosure auction is probably too much to take on for a first time home buyer (the topic of mortgage foreclosure is an article in and of itself), but buying a foreclosed home from a lender can be a much simpler process than going through the normal purchase procedure. A lender with many or even just a few foreclosed homes is anxious to get rid of them. The homes are not generating interest payments, which is how most lenders make their money, and are piling up expenses like real estate taxes, repairs and management or security costs. Most lenders are happy to accept a below market price and are often willing to offer attractive financing packages to make a deal work quickly.
Many lenders have special REO (real estate owned) departments and arrangements with local real estate brokers to deal with caring for and selling off foreclosed properties. Just as one man's ceiling is another woman's floor, the so called sub-prime mortgage crisis can turn into an attractive way for a first time home buyer to get into a first home. You have to do your homework including hiring your own inspector, attorney and contractor to advise and guide you through a purchase process that can turn out to be a real bargain. Be sure to read and understand your loan documents.
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