Banks Take High From Homeowners and Sell Low to Investors

Posted on Aug 9, 2012

Philip Taylor PT (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Record low interest rates on mortgages and refinancing deals are reducing costs to homeowners. But banks are making unusually high profits by selling bundles of those loans to investors at similarly low rates, which means borrowers could be saving even more.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

DealBook at The New York Times:

Banks are making unusually large gains on mortgages because they are taking profits far higher than the historical norm, analysts say. That 3.55 percent rate for a 30-year mortgage could be closer to 3.05 percent if banks were satisfied with the profit margins of just a few years ago. The lower rate would save a borrower about $30,000 in interest payments over the life of a $300,000 mortgage.

“The banks may say, ‘We are offering you record low interest rates, so you should be as happy as a clam,’ ” said Guy D. Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, a home loan publication. “But borrowers could be getting them cheaper.”

… The jump in revenue for the banks is not coming from charging consumers higher fees. Instead, it comes from the their role as middlemen. Banks make their money from taking the mortgages and bundling them into bonds that they then sell to investors, like pensions and mutual funds. The higher the mortgage rate paid by homeowners and the lower the interest paid on the bonds, the bigger the profit for the bank.

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