My fiance is regrettably still a mortgage loan officer (I was - gee what a much better fire this is compared to the pan I was in right?).  He experiences this tightening of qualifications all the time.  We're really well past approving people who could fog a mirror - now they just don't want to lend so they put out these great rates but good luck approving excellent buyers. 

He recently had a guy with a reasonable DTI ratio, more than 5% down and a 780+ score... overall a perfect buyer.  One bank shot the guy down, asking for insane things so Dan tried a second bank.  This bank didn't have a problem with anything the first one did but then they raked the guy over the coals for unrelated things.  He was stalking around ranting for weeks. The guy ended up trading in his NEW car for a lower priced one just to lower his monthly payment even though his DTI was fine.

I agree Kevin, regardless of the whys or whatevers, making the pool of borrowers smaller isn'r helping the abstracting business. Nor is it helping the mortgage brokers, loan officers, signing agents, title folks - those that survived / are struggling.  People not in real estate don't realize how far-reaching this mess really is as far as reduced incomes for us in related industries.  I know a good many of my formerly fellow loan officers contributed to the foreclosure volume (both by previously lending to mirror-foggers and by losing their own homes when the $hit hit the fan).

Thanks Scott, I'm looking forward to being a smarmy car loan dealer.  Gotta do something soon!  

Kym