Lead author Mara Der Hovanesian, who I quoted at the head of this piece, expanded on the story during a revealingly candid 19 minute long podcast.[5] I have transcribed the following passage that occurred at time 07:55 – 08:33 on the MP3 version.
“We don’t know exactly what [option-ARM mortgage loans] they [the lenders] have on the books because they haven’t been required to disclose it. Now that is slowly changing. We’re getting little glimpses now because the regulator is mad. And they’re looking at their audits, and they’ve seen and they’ve talked to the banks and they’ve said, ‘you know, you have to get this stuff off your books, you’ve got to raise your standards and things have got to change.’ And so we’re expecting, in fact, new guidelines from the banking industry’s main watchdog, the Office of the Controller of the Currency, to come out with something.”
Payment option-ARM are readjusting next year, across the banking industry. Just like they did with minimum payments and credit cards last year.
