Loans Down $1 Trillion; Subprime More Common

Check out this page from the National Mortgage News web site. Regular readers of The Housing Bubble have seen similar data before, but this provides a good example of how the industry went out on a limb when business dried up.

Note that even as the overall mortgage market shrank by over $1 trillion from 2003 to 2004, the higher-risk subprime loans grew by 56% to $608 billion. The bubble is clearly visible in the "Total Residential Production" column. There you will see the year 2000 number of $1 trillion grow to almost $4 trillion in 2003!

Also, as a measure of how things have changed, the NMN puts in the 1995 figures. From there we see subprime loans are 1,600% higher in 2004. The web site will probably keep this information up for a week.