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27 » VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM HAVE LOWER LENDING STANDARDS PUSHED CREDIT SCORES DOWN? It's been one of the biggest stories to follow in mortgage lending: After years of too-loose and then too-tight credit access, average FICO scores are now slowly floating down, and the market looks a little more open for low-score borrowers. But do these steady declines really indicate a loosening in standards among lenders? "Afraid not," say researchers at the Urban Institute's (UI) Housing Finance Policy Center. In a recent blog post, UI's Jun Zhu, Laurie Goodman, and Bing Bai assert, "A market com- position change—not lower lending standards— explains the decrease in average credit scores for conventional and FHA [Federal Housing Administration] mortgages. "Despite rising home prices and gradual housing recovery, the mortgage lending rules have remained tight, inhibiting housing demand and economic growth," they continue. In their post, the researchers examine Ellie Mae's latest Origination Insight Report, which shows average credit scores for conventional purchase loans in March stood at 755, while FHA loans were at an average 684—both down from last year. In their own findings, the UI team found credit scores for conventional mortgages averaged 752, down from 758 a year ago, while scores on FHA purchase loans were down to 686 from 697. e findings echo Ellie Mae's latest Origination Insight Report, which showed average scores for conventional purchase loans at 755 and FHA loans at 684 in March. However, pooling the loans together reveals credit scores were flat: "e average credit score of all purchase loans stayed around 730 during the one-year period—no actual credit easing." Rather, the researchers say the shifting market is behind the decreases in approved credit scores. With FHA raising its insurance premiums, private mortgage insurance has started to look more at- tractive to those borrowers whose FICO scores rate high by FHA standards but still fall on the low end of GSE standards. As a result, the group says, FHA is losing business at the higher end of its credit score range, bringing its average score down. (According to the team, the share of borrowers in FHA's 680–759 and 760+ brackets dropped as of March to 40 percent and 8 percent, respectively—down several percentage points in each bracket.) Meanwhile, the GSEs are taking those same borrowers, in turn seeing their own average scores fall. It's because of that change—and not declining credit standards—that average scores are on the decline, the researchers conclude: "Most of the buzz about credit score declines in GSE and FHA loans are due to higher FICO-score borrowers now choosing GSE lending over FHA—shifting the market share and reducing the credit scores of both." CREDIT STANDARDS STAY PUT FOR PRIME MORTGAGE PRODUCTS A newly released survey of senior loan offi- cers around the country finds credit standards remained largely the same on basic prime mortgage products over the latest quarter, while demand came in weaker. According to the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey, 14.3 percent of bank respondents reported tightening their credit standards on prime residential mort- gages "somewhat," just slightly higher than the 12.9 percent that eased standards some- what. e vast majority—72.9 percent—said standards "remained basically unchanged." On the topic of subprime loans: On net, the handful of banks offering such products reported tightening, though more than half still said standards changed little. Even discounting normal seasonal varia- tions, demand for all mortgage products— prime, subprime, and nontraditional—was reported as moderately to substantially weaker on net over the three-month period. Demand dropped most for prime residential loans, with a combined 42.9 percent of banks reporting less interest in mortgages compared to only 17.1 percent reporting more. Responses largely read the same for revolving home equity lines of credit: Among loan officers from 70 banks, 84.3 percent said credit standards have remained mostly the same, though among those who reported changes, a slight net majority said they have eased. Meanwhile, just more than half of respondents saw unchanged demand over the quarter, with slightly more seeing demand weaken (25.7 percent) rather than strengthen (20 percent). e Fed's survey followed a report by the Urban Institute in which researchers contend that lower credit scores have been a result of a change in market share, not a drop in standards. COLLATERAL ANALYTICS LAUNCHES NEW CREDIT RISK MODEL Collateral Analytics, a provider of automated valuation solutions and real estate analytics products for the financial services industry, an- nounced recently it has launched the CA Credit Risk Model. e new patent pending product is designed to offer quantitative measures of the risk and cost of potential borrower default in a residential mortgage. "Our new Credit Risk Model can be used to help lenders set the interest rate that should be charged for a particular loan based on its loan-to- value ratio, borrower's credit score, and specific loan and property traits," says Michael Sklarz, president and CEO of Collateral Analytics. "As such, it can be viewed as a pricing tool for an individual mortgage, mortgage portfolio, or an indicator of the credit risk among different real estate markets," Sklarz added. e CA Credit Risk Model combines Col- lateral Analytics' automated valuation model (AVM) with its proprietary home price forecast and mortgage performance models to predict the expected profitability of a mortgage. Nationwide, February home prices were up 7.6 percent year-over year, according to Black Knight's Home Price Index Report. KNOW THIS

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