Book Review: Busted by Edmund L Andrews
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
Having previously featured volumes of dream homes, architectural eye candy and even a few practical manuals for home buyers, I suppose it is appropriate now to feature a book about the mortgage market meltdown. Edmund L. Andrews is an economics writer for the New York Times. In Busted he chronicles the shadowy world of “non-conforming” mortgages like “low doc”” and “no doc” loans which require borrowers to provide little or not proof of their assets or income. These mortgages that were made to people who clearly could not afford to repay them fueled the stratospheric rise of real estate prices in may areas, and Andrews had a bird’s eye view as one of those over-leveraged borrowers. A divorced man with large alimony payments, Andrews was unable to qualify for a conventional mortgage to purchase a home with his new wife and her children. Andrews used a no doc loan, for just a slightly higher interest rate to purchase what he describes as a modest middle class residence in a suburb of Washington DC. He later re-financed several times in reaction to various financial events in his life.
Andrews states frankly that he wants and expects no sympathy. And that is good as I have none for him. As of the publication date Andrews and his wife were way behind in their mortgage payments and waiting to be foreclosed on. Andrews is a good writer and he does tell an interesting story about the sub-prime mortgage mess. It remains to be seen just how big a problem that mess is going to be to solve, but Busted does a good job of presenting the story to date. Recommended.
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