Ben Bernanke Can't Refinance Because Credit Is Still Ridiculously Tight
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Things have come to a pretty pass when even Ben Bernanke can’t refinance his mortgage, as he lamented at a conference in Chicago on Thursday. It’s likely that the former chairman of the Federal Reserve can’t refinance his mortgage because most of his income comes from 1099 sources rather than W-2s. Never mind that these are very large 1099s—he gets at least $200,000 per speech, Bloomberg reported last month.
This is not the chart that shows what Bernanke and the rest of us are up against. It shows that mortgages are actually easier to get these days. The Mortgage Credit Availability Index has risen to around 116 as of last month from around 100 in 2012. Hard to see what all the fuss is about.