Ranjan, requiring 10% down is only a very small protection for the (ultimate) lender in a non-recourse purchase loan state like CA facing major and persistent price declines. Credit scores, and wealth in other assets, mean even less. About all that protects the lenders in a market in major decline is the borrower’s downpayment, and a 10% downpayment is less than the projected one-year decline in home prices in most CA markets. It’s so small it’s a joke.
Consider this situation: Someone buys a $1 million house now with 10% down, so the ultimate lenders put up $900,000. In 3 years time the house is sold for $600,000. How do the lenders get their $900,000 back? They don’t of course, regardless of the credit or other assets of the borrower. No matter who the (non-recourse state) borrower is, the lenders get back just $600,000 less the sale expenses, and take a massive loss.
In my example, which isn’t too outlandish, the lenders would have to have received annual interest of $100,000 in excess of the Treasury rate for 3 years in order to be compensated for their $300,000 loss at the future foreclosure, ignoring their foreclosure and other costs. That’s 11.11% extra interest annually over and above the risk-free rate! Clearly, lenders still are not charging anything even close to the interest rates required to justify 10% downpayments. Before now, the lenders were all pricing in never-ending home price inflation. Now they are all pricing in huge government bailouts.
