May
Economists are blaming overzealous lender for the US sub prime mortgage debacle. According to them, lenders compromised on prudently devised norms for lending, and in the process, loaned monies to people who would not under normal conditions qualify for any mortgage. While this is true to an extent, it is not the whole truth.
The problem actually started towards the end of 1990s, and the first few years of 2000s, when the banks and lenders found their coffers filled with cash. They had no takers for this money, which is the reason they brought down both lending rates as well as the norms for lending. This did not do augur well for long-term business, considering the cost of their capital.
Desperate to earn some monies, lenders innovated new financial products to capture more customers than their competitors. Home loans were considered the safest bet of them all. After all, if the borrower failed to pay, the lenders could always opt for foreclosure and get back their monies. Their assumption was not far fetched, because around that period, real estate values had climbed up a few notches. In what followed this surplus liquidity, many people with adverse credit, including some first time homebuyers came into these rapids. A frenzied borrowing trend led real estate to dizzying heights, but eventually, when the first set of these poor credit borrowers defaulted, the real estate bubble just burst, and lenders found they’d been lending more than the actual worth of the property. They also realized that their products had contributed to this frenzy, and those foreclosure clauses were not adequate protection for them.
This same financial need to create a new market is what is currently being experienced by financial institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. Although Africa’s financial state is much smaller than that found in the U.S. or Europe, the same conditions that had emerged in the U.S. several years ago is now being seen developing in Africa. Africa is on the verge of seeing their mortgage market take an upsweep.
But the African residential mortgage markets, unlike the US and European markets are far from being fully developed. In these most of these countries only a small minority of the residents have a bank account or use any type of banking facility, let alone have a mortgage. In these markets the residential mortgage loan exclusive and generally only available to the upper class. But now there is a growing middle class demographic with the desire for home ownership.
The African banks may also have an added edge in that they are not as likely to create adverse mortgage products. This advantage is due in large part to the African people’s lack of financial dealings. Most of them have never had loans or credit of any type and therefore have no negative credit history. Unlike conditions in the U.S., the African lenders only give credit to those individuals who hold a regular job and are paid a salary. It is also a customary practice for lenders to receive their repayment amounts directly from the borrower’s employer rather than waiting to be paid from the borrower himself. This system of repayment has made lending on the part of the financial institution much less risky. It has also led to rewards for the person borrowing as they often receive much lower interest rates because of it.
This means the lenders in sub Saharan region would not be allowing a mortgage market to run away. Instead, they will be investing elsewhere and earning profits on their investment. Mortgage market in the west, particularly, the home loan segment will take several years to recoup. In the meanwhile, it will be African banks that may rule the roost.