Freddie Mac is also reporting the average current, adjusted loan-to-value ratio for its single-family home portfolio has been increasing steadily over the past few years.
In many cases, adjusting loans would help the homeowners and the lenders: the new mortgages would have lower monthly payments that homeowners could afford to pay, and would end up giving the lenders more money than the 50 cents on the dollar that many foreclosure sales are bringing these days.
But rather than adjusting loan-loss provisions by a fixed proportion on the basis of past economic cycles, the new standard lets the banks determine how much to write off.
Governments and regulators in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere always seem to be adjusting loan-to-value ratios, restricting the availability of credit for speculative homebuying, imposing taxes on homes that are flipped within a certain period and so on.Macroprudential regulation is a good idea in theory, but extremely hard to do well.
In 2006, blacks were 2.3 times more likely, and Hispanics twice as likely, to get high-cost loans as whites, after adjusting for loan amounts and the income of the borrowers, according to an analysis of loans reported under the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.
Last year, blacks were 2.3 times more likely, and Hispanics twice as likely, to get high-cost loans as whites after adjusting for loan amounts and the income of the borrowers, according to an analysis of loans reported under the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.
"But in New York City, where values are still high and loan amounts are much higher than elsewhere, servicers might have to adjust the loans a lot more to make them affordable," Mr. Zinner said.
But even as Greece and the European Union denied the reports and sought to calm nervous markets, other European officials acknowledged that the country needed its loans adjusted after new figures showed a deep recession and higher-than-forecast fiscal debt.
It could adjust the loan-to-income cap if necessary.
Her senator made an inquiry with a regulator after her own extensive efforts at persuading her lender to adjust her loan had failed.
The HAMP program, and its predecessor at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, usually modified the mortgage payments by adjusting the loan interest rate over the subsequent five to seven years.
