Mortgage lending in America is seizing up. How to revive it

The American mortgage market is shrinking. After years of rising house prices and dwindling lending, the value of mortgage debt as a share of the housing stock is at its lowest in 60 years. To those who remember the global financial crisis, when troubled housing loans blew up the banks, this may sound like good news. In fact, it is a cause for concern. Many families are being needlessly locked out of homeownership. Labour mobility has slowed, as homeowners stay put. And because modest, single-family homes have fewer prospective buyers, fewer of those properties are being built. America’s mortgage market needs unclogging.