Weiss Blames Feds, Lenders for Mortgage Crisis

Federal regulators and mortgage lenders were "largely responsible" for the housing and mortgage crisis, which should be remedied by better enforcement of predatory-lending statutes and the adoption of "suitability" requirements and federal licensing standards for lenders, according to a white paper by Weiss Research Inc.The white paper, submitted to the Federal Reserve Board July 19, argues that the crisis is likely to worsen and that the Fed played a role in "further inflating the housing bubble that's at the root of the current crisis." Mike Larson, Weiss's interest rate and real estate analyst and the author of the report, also points the finger at lenders who "debased their standards" rather than accept a decline in lending volume, and at Wall Street, whose "large-scale transformation of mortgages into securities significantly boosted risk-taking." Among other things, the report calls for assignee liability for the secondary market and closer monitoring and prompter action by the Fed to "help avert runaway asset price inflation." Weiss, based in Jupiter, Fla., can be found online at http://www.weissgroupinc.com.