Residential mortgage standards

Net percentage of domestic respondents (sr loan officers)
tightening standards for mortgages to individuals

This series is another datum. Alone it doesn't shock, as for now its rise merely echoes the small tightening observed as the last recession came to a close, surely no warning then. Still, tightening mortgage credit doesn't scream out that housing has bottomed, certainly not with for-sale-only vacancies still high. Even-greater tightening of lending standards were seen at the outset of the last housing trough in 1990-1, so this series bears watching.

This article is based on responses from fifty-seven domestic banks..

..domestic respondents noted that they had tightened credit standards on residential mortgage loans over the survey period, while demand for such loans continued to weaken. Lending standards and terms on credit card and non-credit-card consumer loans were little changed in the January survey, but a considerable net fraction of domestic banks reported that they had seen weaker demand for consumer loans over the past three months.

The January 2007 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System 5. Feb. 2007

Hat tip: Asha Bangalore/NT (PDF)

FD: short homebuilders