Subprime lending is the practice of lending, mainly in the form of mortgages for the purchase of residences, to borrowers who do not meet the usual criteria for borrowing at the lowest prevailing market interest rate. These criteria pertain to the downpayment and the borrowing household's income level, both as a fraction of the amount borrowed, and to the borrowing household's employment status and credit history. If a borrower is delinquent in making timely mortgage payments to the loan servicer (a bank or other financial firm), the lender can take possession of the residence acquired using the proceeds from the mortgage, in a process called foreclosure.
The value of USA subprime mortgages was estimated at $1.3 trillion as of March 2007, with over 7.5 million first-lien subprime mortgages outstanding. In the third quarter of 2007, subprime ARMs making up only 6.8% of USA mortgages outstanding also accounted for 43% of the foreclosures begun during that quarter. By October 2007, approximately 16% of subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) were either 90-days delinquent or the lender had begun foreclosure proceedings, roughly triple the rate of 2005. By January 2008, the delinquency rate had risen to 21%. and by May 2008 it was 25%.
The value of all outstanding residential mortgages, owed by USA households to purchase residences housing at most 4 families, was US$9.9 trillion as of yearend 2006, and US$10.6 trillion as of midyear 2008. During 2007, lenders had begun foreclosure proceedings on nearly 1.3 million properties, a 79% increase over 2006. As of August 2008, 9.2% of all mortgages outstanding were either delinquent or in foreclosure. 936,439 USA residences completed foreclosure between August 2007 and October 2008.
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