1. Were banks forced to loan money to people? In other words, they had no choice but to make loans?
No. No bank has been forced to make loans. It's a popular rewriting of history on Hannity and Rush to say that Clinton forced banks to make loans to minorities. Clinton did give banks incentives to make loans in areas where home ownership was low (often minority communities), but no bank had a gun to their head.
Also, these loans represent a tiny percent of the foreclosures. The real estate collapse is at its peak in Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix and have nothing to do with minority loans.
As the video below says, however, banks started giving loans to people who had no business getting a home loan. All those, "Borrow up to 125% of your home value" ads were simply to drum up business for the system that made them billions. Again, watch the video below. It does a great job explaining who profited from giving ridiculuous loans.
2. If someone still has the same job why are they suddenly not able to pay their mortgage?
The reason is the type of loans people took out. Most were adjustable rate with a great rate for the first few years. Jane takes out a loan for a house that is beyond her means. She can make her payments for the first three years because her interest rate is 3%. In year four the interest rate goes to Fed rate plus 2.5%. In 2006 that would have been 7.5%. Suddenly her payments go from $1000/month to $1400. Jane goes under water quickly.
Should Jane have known her rates would go up? Probably. Certainly the guy making the loan knew. He also knew that by the time she defaulted the loan would have been sold off so he frankly didn't care.
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