Bigger than Fannie and Freddie: Defining Qualifying Residential Mortgages

A prominent feature of the Dodd-Frank Act is the risk-retention provision in Title IX (Subtitle D, § 941).  It requires banks that originate mortgages to retain 5 percent of the credit risk in their portfolios.  The risk-retention requirement was created in direct response to the oft-cited lending practice that contributed to the housing bubble where mortgage originators would sell off the securitized loans without retaining any of the credit risk.  A key exception to the provision concern “qualified residential mortgages” (QRM) and loans designated as QRMs are exempt from the risk-retention requirement.

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