Mortgages classified as subprime provide collateral for $800 billion in securities. At the end of August, about $46 billion in subprime loans, representing 225,000 homes, had defaulted, according to Credit Suisse Group. The number will more than triple to $143 billion by the middle of 2009, said the bank. Total subprime loan defaults will top out at about $270 billion, or 1.52 million homes, in 2010 or later. Teaser rates apparently caused many of the problems. Mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations containing those securities are falling in price and will continue to slide due to falling home prices, defaults, and general distrust. The issue is not strictly a subprime issue. Here is why:
U.S. investors with good credit continue to make minimum payments on jumbo and Alt-A loans. Other than mortgages, collateralized debt obligations such as credit card receivables could also go bad as homeowners begin a general default. Banks heavily invested in a combination of second mortgages, subprime, and credit cards will be hardest hit. Five banks control 80 percent of the credit card market. They are Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC, Capital One and JP Morgan Chase.
The Wall Street Journal says that HSBC is one of the biggest subprime lenders in the US and is one of several lenders to stumble in its dealings with low-end borrowers.
Investors also enforce repurchase agreements when they discover bad loans. Consider New Century, once the second largest subprime lender in the United States. New Century has received about $975 million of financing from Morgan Stanley. Part of the money from the New York-based securities firm was used to pay Citigroup Inc. about $717 million on March 8, after Citigroup demanded repurchase of its loans, New Century said.
“HSBC is invested in too many vulnerable sectors in the United States” said Household – HSBC Watch.
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This article, Status report on subprime, MBS and CDO, is just one of our articles from our Mortgage Crisis Daily
The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Before, During, and After
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