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shmatttoday at 1:52 PM4 repliesview on HN

Home owns are owned by people, not the home itself. If someone fails to pay a loan, their own credit score will be impacted

For these PE loans, its the new company that takes on the debt, not the buyer. Essentially any broke person can "afford" any trillion dollar company this way


Replies

true_religiontoday at 2:05 PM

Home loans are secured by the asset (the home). It's comparable to stock, but it's a less liquid asset.

Any broke person can afford a trillion dollar loan, if they can convince the bank that their house is worth 1.8 trillion dollars. But is that really possible?

Loan companies do due diligence so if GameStop is $A and eBay is worth $A + $B, then so long as $A/$B remains the same, the acquiring company owns two assets worth the full price of the loan.

It doesn't seem to be a scam to me. Am I missing something?

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triceratopstoday at 1:54 PM

There are other categories of real estate loans where the debt is against the property itself. The lender evaluates the property's income and expenses when underwriting the loan.

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Ajedi32today at 2:13 PM

Fair point, it's a corporation taking out the loan so there's nobody to go after if the company goes under the way there is if the value of your house tanks and you stop paying your mortgage. But doesn't the bank take that risk into account when deciding whether to issue the loan? Why should that be illegal?

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taerictoday at 2:12 PM

Leaving aside that the new company is the buyer; the point remains that home and car loans are leveraged loans. With the main asset in the leverage being that which is being bought. Defaulting on that loan results in the assets going to the lender.

If a lender builds a pattern of lending to people that can't make the payments, that lender will take a hit. If we think that isn't happening, why? And how could we return us to that?

Or, back to my question, how would you structure a legal framework where some loans can be done this way, but others could not? (I can think of a few ways, largely curious if I have a blind spot here.)