You know it’s a tough market when Bernanke can’t refinance
October 3, 2014 Last updated: Friday, October 3, 2014, 11:31 AM
The Record
Bloomberg News
Ben S. Bernanke said the mortgage market is so tight that even he is having a hard time refinancing his own home loan.
The former Federal Reserve chairman, speaking at a conference in Chicago yesterday, told moderator Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics Inc. – “just between the two of us” – that “I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful in doing so.”
When the audience laughed, Bernanke said, “I’m not making that up.”
“I think it’s entirely possible” that lenders “may have gone a little bit too far on mortgage credit conditions,” he said.
Bernanke, addressing a conference of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care in Chicago yesterday, said that the first-time home buyer market is “not what it should be” as the economy in general strengthens.
“The housing area is one area where regulation has not yet got it right,” Bernanke said. “I think the tightness of mortgage credit, lending is still probably excessive.”
Bernanke already has refinanced twice. When the former Fed chair and his wife Anna bought their Capitol Hill rowhouse in May 2004, they took out two loans, according to Washington, D.C., land records.
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