The Sub-Prime Mortgage Market Implodes

The New York Times reports:

The once booming market for home loans to people with weak credit — known as subprime mortgages and made largely to minorities, the poor and first-time buyers stretching to afford a home — is coming under greater pressure. The evidence can be seen in rising default rates, increasingly strained finances at mortgage lenders and growing doubts among investors.

Now, Wall Street firms, which had helped fuel the growth in the market by bankrolling and investing in subprime mortgage lenders, have begun to pinch off the money spigot.

Several mortgage lenders have recently collapsed. While the failures so far are small in number, some industry officials are concerned that they could be the first in a wave. The subprime sector, which produced loans worth more than $500 billion in the first nine months of last year, could shrink significantly.

A sharp contraction in subprime mortgages would have ripple effects, reducing consumers’ access to credit and affecting investors like foreign central banks, pensions and mutual funds that have been big buyers of mortgage-backed securities.

A market that caterers to those without equity is at risk.Big risk.