There was a reason for more difficult loans, because when they eased it, banks crashed and we had to bail them out.
As someone who has been a real estate appraiser for 18 years, when banks were giving out easy loans, people were not paying back their loans. Everyone was refinancing to take out their equity. There were houses that I appraised during the crash that had 3 to 4 mortgages on them. The banks in the 3rd of 4th position had to eat those loans. I did a lot of foreclosures for Wells Fargo. Some right before they kicked the owners out.
I appraised one guys house that was in a lower middle class area. He was bitching up a storm that the bank was taking his house. I shit you not, dude had a Hummer in the driveway, Harley in the garage, and big screens in every room. This was in 2008, when big screens were fucking expensive. That dude took every cent of his equity and spent it on depreciating assets. He had that house for like15 years. Bought it cheap and could have it paid off, but decided it was more important to look like a big shot and live beyond his means. That cost him his house.
So after the housing market fiasco, due to tons of mortgage fraud mostly on applications. Mortgage brokers were filing out the income section for borrowers and there was a ton of liar loans out there. Due to investors getting fucked on mortgages rife with fraud, the loan market tightened up as a reaction to the fraud. Those investors are the ones who get people elected, so they went to the government and was like fix this shit, which they did.
As an appraiser I have seen some shady shit, and those liar loans, are making a comeback.