First-Time Buyer Index Shows Mortgage Loans Are Becoming Riskier. Team Thayer #RealEstateNews #EugeneOregon
The April 2015 First-Time Buyer Mortgage Risk Index (FBMRI) for Agency loans increased by nearly a full percentage point year-over-year up to 15.28 percent, indicating that those mortgage loans are moving deeper into the high-risk category, according to data released this week by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)'s International Center on Housing Risk . Risk layering is largely responsible for the increase in risk on mortgage loans taken out by first-time buyers, according to AEI. Seventy percent of first-time mortgage buyers in April 2015 had a combined LTV ratio of 95 percent or more and 97 percent of them had a 30-year term. Without substantial home price appreciation, the low down payment and slow amortization makes it likely that these first-time buyers will have very little equity in their homes for many years. Also contributing to the higher risk among first-time buyers is that approximately one-fifth of them fit the traditional definition...