Sometimes Not Making a List Is a Good Thing

Here's something interesting I just saw in the Wall Street Journal:

Stung by growing defaults, lenders are offering borrowers fewer ways to avoid purchasing private mortgage insurance. Mortgage insurance, required for buyers who are unable to make a full down payment or who have insufficient credit histories, reimburses lenders in the event of a borrower default. But over the past few months, mortgage insurers have been declaring more and more of the U.S. a "declining market," raising the requirements and making such insurance harder to obtain. The result: another hurdle for home buyers, and yet another wrenching change for the struggling housing market.

The bad news is that many Tennessee cities - Chattanooga, Clarksville, Cleveland, Jackson, and the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro area - have been named as "declining markets" this year. The good news is that Knoxville has not.

If you're interested, here is the complete list of markets declared declining by three major mortgage insurers.