Get Ready for the Next Housing Bubble: Mel Watt is a long-time champion of mortgage quotas for affordable housing. Here we go again.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The only way to maintain a stable housing market is by requiring reasonable underwriting standards. This means a down payment of at least 10%, a FICO credit score above 660, and a debt-to-income ratio, after the mortgage is closed, of no more than 38%. When those standards were generally in force between 1970 and 1992, mortgage defaults in the U.S. were under 1% and the national homeownership rate was 64%—about where it is today after all the foreclosures in recent years.

Unfortunately, Mr. DeMarco's underwriting standards will almost certainly change, and for the worse, once Mr. Watt is in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The stage has already been set. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP), an agency created by the Dodd-Frank Act, has outlined a minimum quality mortgage that will permit a borrower to get a loan with a 3% down payment and a FICO credit score well below 660. Under Dodd-Frank, a lender could be subject to severe penalties if it turns out that the borrower cannot repay the loan—but the CFPB's rule protects the lender against liability if Fannie and Freddie's automated underwriting systems approve the loan.

This is what Nancy Pelosi calls tougher regulation!