While I had a seemingly good guy as a mortgage broker, I remember being shocked at the fact that I didn’t need to have the big down payment of my parent’s era. We put far less than the traditional 20% and used the cash saved for improvements on the house. I did have to document everything, though. I wonder how I would’ve reacted if given the option of just filling out a form or two and getting a loan without all of that effort. I know going into the process, as Barry Ritholtz suggests, I leaned on the mortgage broker to be an honest intermediary and guide to the process.

Cowen’s article (blurb, really) is short on details, just reporting a statistical result from a repot without explaining how they arrived at those numbers. Issuing a blanket accusation that many of these people committed fraud seems a bit ridiculous.