First Republic handed out billions in ultra-low-rate mortgages to the wealthy

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-first-republic-bank-in-trouble-mortgages-backfired-rising-rates-2023-4

by VagueMag • 3 years ago

46 6 3 years ago

klyrs• 3 years ago

rnk• 3 years ago

Looks like there is no reason for them to exist because of the large negative net worth of the low interest rate loans. They could only survive if their other assets are worth a huge amount to offset that.

fnordpiglet• 3 years ago

The loans don’t have a negative net worth. That would imply they need to pay loan holders. The loans are worth less than they were before, so they are net negative profit. But they have a positive worth as they will likely be paid back in full. The challenge they have is they face a liquidity problem unrelated to the loan value. Since they’re leveraged into their loans if someone tries to withdraw money they don’t have they can’t raise it by selling the loans. Granted, they are also potentially underwater from the loan value decreases, but I’ve not seen anything that indicates that. Mostly I think no one sees a reason to park their assets at a regional bank right now- although a lot of smaller banks are offering extremely high returns on deposits to simply keep depositors from leaving, even if their loan and asset portfolio can’t support it indefinitely.

icedistilled• 3 years ago

Guess giving mark Zuckerberg a something like a 1.7% mortgage rate was a bad idea. Yeah first republic literally did that. Not sure how that would make any business sense, the execs should be subjected to massive claw backs.

prepend• 3 years ago

For example, one of the most senior executives at Goldman Sachs took out an $11.2 million mortgage with First Republic with no principal payments in the first 10 years and an interest rate below 3%, per Bloomberg.

This isn’t that odd as it depends on when this loan was given out. Regular schmoes were able to get 2.25% mortgages a year ago so giving a 3% interest only mortgage to rich people doesn’t seem that odd in the era of 0% interest.

First Republic handed out billions in ultra-low-rate mortgages to the wealthy

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