The Golden Handcuffs Stifling the Housing Market
The housing crash of 2008 and its ripple effects brought the US housing market the gift of ultra-low interest rates for over a decade. I started in the mortgage business in 1983, when interest rates were in the double digits and balance-sheet lending decisions were made very differently than they are today. Rates in the high 2%-low 3% range were unimaginable to me for the first two-and-a-half decades of my career. Rates so low were a godsend to the mortgage industry and to homebuyers and homeowners. The resulting low interest rates spurred nearly every American homeowner to refinance (often multiple times) and homebuyers to flood the market with offers that ultimately drove home prices into the stratosphere. It was, by most industry measures, a golden era for both mortgage lender...