Without Loan Giants, 30-Year Mortgage May Fade Away

没有放贷巨人，按揭30年将是浮云

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM Published: March 3, 2011

作者：BINYAMIN APPELBAUM 发表日期：2011年3月3日

 

Joe Raedle/Getty Images  A Miami home last month. If Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were closed, homeownership in America could change greatly.

      配图摄影：Joe Raedle/Getty 。图为2月迈阿密老家。如果弗雷德马克和范妮梅倒闭的话，美国产权易主现象将频繁发生。

WASHINGTON — How might home buying change if the federal government shuts down the housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

      华盛顿报道——假如政府关闭两大住宅信贷巨头弗雷德马克和范妮梅，房购的前景如何？

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan, the steady favorite of American borrowers since the 1950s, could become a luxury product, housing experts on both sides of the political aisle say.

      固定利率按揭三十年，这种自20世纪50年代开始美国盛行的借款方式美国居民将会变得很难再享受到。这点两大政党的地产专家所持观点相同。

Interest rates would rise for most borrowers, but urban and rural residents could see sharper increases than the coveted customers in the suburbs.

      虽说郊区大部分贷款者将承受利率上涨，但相对而言，城市和农村的利率涨幅将加剧。

Lenders could charge fees for popular features now taken for granted, like the ability to “lock in” an interest rate weeks or months before taking out a loan.

      目前普通项目上，放贷者可以根据自己能接受的费用来定价：比如在放款前数周或数月，自己“内定”利率。

Life without Fannie and Freddie is the rare goal shared by the Obama administration and House Republicans, although it will not happen soon. Congress must agree on a plan, which could take years, and then the market must be weaned slowly from dependence on the companies and the financial backing they provide.

      假如没有弗雷德马克和范妮梅，利率将由奥巴马政府和众议院来确定，这种利率确定方式当然也会很快成为现实。国会必须作长期打算用来减弱市场对这些公司和它们所提供金融支持的依赖程度。

The reasons by now are well understood. Fannie and Freddie, created to increase the availability of mortgage loans, misused the government’s support to enrich shareholders and executives by backing millions of shoddy loans. Taxpayers so far have spent more than $135 billion on the cleanup.

      现在应该很明朗了。为了照顾公司股东和高层的利益，弗雷德马克和范妮梅滥用政府政策刺激实际放贷，发放以百万计的不良贷款。仅不良贷款的收尾上，纳税人已经多花了1350亿美元。

The much more divisive question is whether the government should preserve the benefits that the companies provide to middle-class borrowers, including lower interest rates, lenient terms and the ability to get a mortgage even when banks are not making other kinds of loans.

      更尖锐的问题就是：当这些公司向中产阶级提供低利率、以宽松贷款条款的放贷，甚至在银行都不能提供按揭贷款时他们还能放贷的时候，政府是否还应该照顾他们的利益呢？

Douglas J. Elliott, a financial policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Congress was being forced for the first time in decades to grapple with the cost of subsidizing middle-class mortgages. The collapse of Fannie and Freddie took with it the pretense that the government could do so at no risk to taxpayers, he said.

      布鲁金斯学会金融政策的同事道格拉斯J.艾略特说：迫于压力，国会正在克服其在向中产阶级房贷上政策倾斜的成本上努力，这现象在数十年以来还是第一次。他说：随着弗雷德马克和范妮梅公司的倒闭，政府说可以做到消除纳税人风险的谎言也随之破产。

“The politicians would like something that provides a deep and wide subsidy for housing that doesn’t show up on the budget as costing anything. That’s what we had” with Fannie and Freddie, Mr. Elliott said. “But going forward there is going to be more honest accounting.”

      “据我们所知：在提供深广的住房补助并没有在政府预算上有任何体现，也就是在表面看来提供住房补助的成本为零。这是政客们喜闻乐见的是事情。这是我们根据弗雷德马克和范妮梅事件推断的，” 艾略特说，“但是日后这种情况将得到改观，报表上将得到更如实的反映这些支出。”

Some Republicans and Democrats say the price is too high. They want the government to pull back, letting the market dictate price, terms and availability.

      共和党人士和民主党的一些成员说，政府补助的成本太高了。按照他们的意思，政府必须减轻其影响力，让价钱、条款和可行性由市场来决定。

“A purely private mortgage finance market is a very serious and very achievable goal,” Representative Scott Garrett, the New Jersey Republican who oversees the subcommittee that oversees Fannie and Freddie, said at a hearing this week. “No one serious in this debate believes our housing market will return to the 1930s.”

      斯科特. 加勒特是新泽西共和党代表兼审查员——审查弗雷德马克和范妮梅审查小组委员会，就在这周的聆讯会上， “纯粹个人抵押贷款市场是一个非常严肃的话题、并且这目标可以很好的达成；” 他说，“这几十年没有人会真的相信我们的房产市场会倒退到30年代的境地。”

Still, powerful interests in both parties want the government instead to construct a system that would preserve many of the same benefits, with changes intended to minimize the risk of future bailouts. They say the recent crisis showed that the market could not stand on its own.

      在政府如何建立一个替代方案上，政党双方都抱有着浓厚的兴趣，在这个替代方案里政府将保护更多类似的利益——也就是做些改变将政府的未来救助风险降至最低。他们的观点是：日前的风险说明完全靠市场本身的做法是行不通的。

“The kind of backstop that we have now, if it didn’t exist, we would have had a much more severe recession and a much sharper fall in home values,” said Michael D. Berman, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, which represents the lending industry.

      借贷行业代表同时也是抵押贷款银行家协会主席——迈克尔D.贝尔曼说：“如果没有我们目前的救助方式，经济衰退将更严峻、房产贬值将更剧。”

Hanging in the balance are the basic features of a mortgage loan: the interest rate and repayment period.

      抵押贷款的基本特征是：利率和偿还期互相平衡。

Fannie and Freddie allow people to borrow at lower rates because investors are so eager to pump money into the two companies that they accept relatively modest returns. The key to that success is the guarantee that investors will be repaid even if borrowers default — a promise ultimately backed by taxpayers.

      由于投资者蜂拥注资弗雷德马克和范妮梅，并且这些投资者要求的投资回报是如此之低，这些原因也就使得弗雷德马克和范妮梅能够提供同样低廉的贷款利率。这些能成立的关键因素是：甚至在借款者违约的情况下，投资者都能得到款项偿还的保证——最终转嫁到纳税人身上的保证。

iMortagefindamortgage E Payday Szh 1 Mortgage Find A Mortgage 译言网 | 没有放贷巨人，按揭30年将是浮云g h Find Find lMortagefindamortgage E Payday Szh 1 Mortgage Find A Mortgage 译言网 | 没有放贷巨人，按揭30年将是浮云b o Mortgage Find A Mortgage Mortgage Find A Mortgage