(RECAP: Federal regulators announced last week a handful of measures designed to help ease post-crisis mortgage-lending standards that some policy makers worry are too tight.
Just how much of an impact will they have? Most people who follow the sector closely don’t think they’ll have a big effect right away. But that hasn’t stopped others from saying that the regulators want to “bring back subprime mortgages.” So who’s right?
The answer is that the changes will ease standards at the margins, and in that sense, they mark an important shift. But so far, to say that these standards are bringing back any of the most problematic practices of the housing bubble is probably a stretch.)