> Some $2.5 billion worth of subprime loans, those with FICO credit scores below 690, ended up in mortgage bonds in the first quarter of 2019. That is more than double a year earlier and the highest level since the end of 2007, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. There was $1.9 billion worth of subprime mortgage bonds in the second quarter.
Statements like this are hard to evaluate without knowing the denominator: the total value of new mortgage bonds in each period.
All too often, an author who should know better throws the reader a scrap like the following sentence:
> The market for unconventional home loans is still tiny compared with the rest of the mortgage market as well as its precrisis past, when unconventional borrowing peaked at more than $1 trillion.
But this still doesn't convey what percentage of the loans are to sub-690 FICO borrowers.
I see this all the time and wonder to what extent it has contributed to mistrust of the traditional media.
If we find out that the percentage in 2019 is 1% but in 2007 it was 56%, that casts the entire story in a different light.
Statements like this are hard to evaluate without knowing the denominator: the total value of new mortgage bonds in each period.
All too often, an author who should know better throws the reader a scrap like the following sentence:
> The market for unconventional home loans is still tiny compared with the rest of the mortgage market as well as its precrisis past, when unconventional borrowing peaked at more than $1 trillion.
But this still doesn't convey what percentage of the loans are to sub-690 FICO borrowers.
I see this all the time and wonder to what extent it has contributed to mistrust of the traditional media.
If we find out that the percentage in 2019 is 1% but in 2007 it was 56%, that casts the entire story in a different light.