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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24235 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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Interesting. I have no opinion on constitutionality, but it occurs to me that if this were legal, the main consequences would be that mortgages would be harder and more expensive to get. Which would be... Not entirely a bad thing? Easy mortgage availability subsidizes demand, perhaps beyond the economically optimal equilibrium level given the irrationality of people around home purchases. (I now feel qualified to speak on that given I am irrationally buying my first home currently.)

This only really affects second mortgages - a foreclosing first mortgage holder will normally set the upset price equal to the outstanding balance plus fees. If nobody bids enough at the auction to make the lender whole, then they will take back the property and sell it the usual way as REO* (which normally gets a better price than an auction because you can sell to normie buyers). In fact, this is what almost always happens, because properties with enough equity to cover the fees and expenses of a foreclosure don't normally end up in foreclosure.

The situation is different when there is a second mortgage and the property is valuable enough that a sale will pay the first but not the second. In this situation the second mortgage holder may bid above the upset price, win the auction, and sell the REO themselves. (They are able to do this because they are in effect paying themselves - anything the first mortgage holder collects at auction above the upset price goes to the second mortgage holder anyway). But if someone exercises a "Jersey first refusal" to buy the property at the upset price set by the first mortgage holder, the second mortgage holder gets wiped out.

Easy mortgage availability subsidizes demand

That would be easy first mortgage availability. Using a second mortgage on a purchase was one of the shady practices that were mostly banned after the 2008 crisis. Most second mortgages are used when the homeowner wants to cash in equity (for any of multiple good or bad reasons) without refinancing the first mortgage (either because they have a fixed rate which is now below market, or because their credit has deteriorated so they couldn't get a prime refi - this second case is the classic use case for subprime).

My guess is that this is intended as a straightforward taking from subprime second mortgage lenders to benefit sympathetic-to-Democrats financially irresponsible homeowners.

* Real Estate Owned

Interesting. I have no opinion on constitutionality, but it occurs to me that if this were legal, the main consequences would be that mortgages would be harder and more expensive to get.

If I understand the law correctly, the effect would be that second mortgages become difficult or impossible to get. The holder of the first mortgage would be fine, because if there is a foreclosure, all it needs to do is set an upset price a little higher than the outstanding debt on the mortgage plus costs.

I guess what would happen is that people who needed a loan secured by a second mortgage would go to whatever bank holds the first mortgage.

Which would be... Not entirely a bad thing?

Maybe. For what it worth, when I started a business a number of years ago I financed it with a HELOC secured by a second mortgage. It was extremely useful to have a line of credit to get me through the ups and downs.

That being said, I'm sure a lot of people would be better off if they were unable to get HELOCs or other loans secured by second mortgages.

Or as has become the popular term, a home ownership desert forms.

Someone has to own the underlying land, and the government can just tax that land to provision services to the residents. The government is the ultimate landlord, and therefore inevitably capable of abrogating most economic rents to itself.

If it were legal, people would find some clever solution to default and reap the rewards, like they used to do for student loans. You are correct that mortgages would have to price in the cost, which would be distributed by law to the parties that don’t have the problem in the first place. Eventually, banks may stop serving the state, as we see in the insurance market.

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