This NPR radio episode runs just under 54 minutes.  Click on the “download” button; it will take several minutes to download.   While you’re waiting, browse through some of our other articles on Ethics in Mortgage Lending! 

In order to better understand why we are currently facing massive mortgage loan defaults of epic proportions, this radio program takes us back in time and helps us understand how investors looking for high yields created a groundswell demand for risky mortgage loan products.

So are these investors to blame for the mortgage industry crisis? 

It’s safe to assume that no wholesale lending reps held guns to the heads of loan originators and demanded that the LOs originate pay option ARMs.

Perhaps it is a choice.  There is at least one bank that decided not to participate in subprime loans and now that bank is not seeing record default ratios on their residential loans, though their story has not yet been told in relation to commercial development loans and construction loans.