Dental Update

Stephen is getting his molars in addition to the eight teeth that he already has. That explains some of the eating habits of late (wanting pureed food more than before)

And he looks like his mom

People ask us who does he look more like. We never knew what to say, so we usually said, "both". Well, the evidence is in and the verdict is that he looks like his mom...see for yourself...ok so maybe I'm biased.

Stephen

Shelby

Sean

More from the Joint Center for Housing Studies

Quickly, this is from a paper entitled, "Eliminating Credit Barriers To Increase Homeownership: How Far Can We Go?" written by Stuart S. Rosenthal in August of 2001:

On balance, therefore, evidence suggests that there is room for further relaxation of borrowing constraints to expand access to homeownership. However, such efforts are likely to be more fruitful if attention is given to mortgage products that alleviate borrowing constraints in the early years of the mortgage [ie. option ARM] and if mortgage product innovation is coupled with policies designed to enhance the social and financial stability of families

Joint Center for Housing Studies

In doing some random Googling, I came across the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. It is a collaboration between the Graduate School of Design (yaay---my sister Lilli graduated from the GSD), The Kennedy School of Government, and it looks like Economic and Sociology Departments within the broader Harvard University. It was really interesting to go around the site, although very time consuming and very academic, but they have some very interesting publications written before the housing crisis writing about the implications of relaxing credit for mortgages, the role of the FHA in increasing home ownership and many many others. In the background section of one paper, written by Albert Monroe in 2001, he described the start of the Great Depression and the FHA: [startling in light of the current crisis]

The banking crisis in the early 1930s forced lenders to call in the mortgages as they came due, and since all lenders were affected by the banking crisis, refinancing was not available and many borrowers were forced to default. Other borrowers became unemployed and could not make their mortgage payments, so lenders foreclosed on their homes. The situation was exacerbated as the weak economy caused property values to fall, moving borrowers into negative equity situations and giving them an incentive to default. In short, by 1934, many banks had numerous bad home loans on their books (loans for which the collateral—the home—was worth less than the value of the loan). Their lack of assets and their recent experience made them unwilling to extend new home loans.
Policy makers hoped that the FHA, by insuring mortgages, would jumpstart the market for home loans, thereby increasing housing starts and employment in the construction industry. The FHA revolutionized the mortgage market, not only by getting banks to start lending again, but also by changing (and standardizing) mortgage instruments and underwriting procedures. In particular, the FHA (Section 203b) insured 100 percent of qualified loans in case of default. At first, the FHA would qualify 20-year fully amortizable loans with an 80 percent LTV. Later, the FHA began to qualify 30-year loans with LTVs higher than 95 percent. The FHA’s 100 percent insurance was very important because at that time there did not exist reinsurance markets in which banks could reduce their home loan risk.

Pictures from Stephen's Birthday Photo Shoot

These are from his photo shoot on his birthday...

Feeling very patriotic this week

The American democratic process is something that the world envies. We have a peaceful, inclusive, transparent, and relatively quick process in which we all come together to let our views be known. Our regime change comes from us, as a people. I am so encouraged by the shear numbers of people who came out to vote, to be counted, and to be heard. 8 million people in Texas and 9 million people in California came out to vote. Virginia turn out was over 75%.