Bill Clinton promoted paper-thin downpayments and pushed for ways to get lenders to give mortgage loans to first-time buyers with shaky financing

Add President Clinton to the long list of people who deserve a share of the blame for the housing bubble and bust. A recently re-exposed document shows that his administration went to ridiculous lengths to increase the national homeownership rate. It promoted paper-thin downpayments and pushed for ways to get lenders to give mortgage loans to first-time buyers with shaky financing and incomes. It’s clear now that the erosion of lending standards pushed prices up by increasing demand, and later led to waves of defaults by people who never should have bought a home in the first place...

The Clinton-era document that Mason cites—“The National Homeownership Strategy: Partners in the American Dream”—was hiding in plain sight on the website of the Department of Housing & Urban Development until last year, when according to Mason it was removed (probably because the housing bust made it seem embarrassing to the department). Mason credits Joshua Rosner of Graham Fisher & Co. with saving a copy of it before it was expunged.

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