Standards in the U.S. are so high for mortgage loans that former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, now a Brookings Institute fellow-in-residence with a net worth of at least $1.1 million, said at a conference last week that he couldn’t refinance his house in Washington, D.C., Bloomberg News reported today. Lenders are continuing to tighten the credit vise on homebuyers after five straight years of economic expansion, imposing the toughest standards since at least 1998, according to a new index by CoreLogic Inc. In May, credit availability for all home loans was half of what it was in the late 1990s, when the housing market was making steady gains much like today, according to the Housing Credit Index. While federal programs for struggling homeowners have helped to boost refinancing, credit availability for home purchases in May was about a third of what it was in 1998, according to the index.
