Complex mortgages were more often sought out by sophisticated homebuyers

Beware of predatory lenders? No, fear predatory borrowers

Sita Nataraj Slavov 

...a new study by economists Gene Amronin, Jennifer Huang, Clemens Sialm, and Edward Zhong - a May 2012 working paper entitled "Complex Mortgages" - suggests that we should be more concerned about predatory borrowers.
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To fix the housing market, we need to recognize that the popular narrative of predatory lenders and victimized borrowers - however appealing - is simply wrong. We need to acknowledge the major role that predatory borrowers played in the housing meltdown. And more generally, we need to be more critical of popular narratives that are based on anecdotal evidence rather than hard data.


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