March 16, 2008
...There's certainly a need for better regulatory oversight of the information flows about mortgages both to those investing in mortgage-backed securities and to home buyers getting the loans, says Gary Painter, director of research at the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
To the extent that disclosure was to improve, he believes mortgage lenders on the whole would benefit because investors would know what they are buying, which would make for a healthier industry in the long run. The potential impact of tougher rules on home builders, whose inventories of unsold homes have ballooned since the credit bubble burst, is less clear, however...