Adjustable-rate mortgage vs. fixed-rate mortgage: ‘It’s amazing what people don’t know about mortgages’
ARMs today are less risky, thanks in part to borrower protections established by the Dodd-Frank Act, according to Ricard Pochkhanawala, senior policy counsel at the National Center for Responsible Lending. Dodd-Frank required lenders to fully document a borrower’s income and assets and their ability to repay an ARM before the loan was made, and it said that borrowers must qualify for the loan based on the fully-indexed rate, not the introductory or “teaser” interest rate. Dodd-Frank was enacted more than a decade ago, but I mention it because its protections are a valuable reminder that when