collateralized mortgage obligations
I think the definition of overcollateralization on investopedia will answer this question for you.  Namely this part: For example, in the case of a mortgage backed security, the principal amount of an issue may be $100 million while the principal value of the mortgages underlying the issue may be equal to $120 million. The bond is packed with more mortgages than the face value indicates.  It's effectively sold at a discount to underlying value. Say there are 5 people took loan of $100000 each. Those 5 people work in different jobs and have different capacity to payoff loan. Someone earning $40000 a year has higher risk to default on their payment then someone making $250000 a year.   As Bank wants to sell this CDO to investor but how would investor know what the risk factor for this CDO is. This is where rating agency comes in picture. They apparently look at the underlying asset and assign rating to this CDO say AAA, B, AA etc which give investor idea of underlying risk.   Problem here is rating agency gets paid by Bank to rate their CDO. So if a rating agency starts rating their CDO to higher risk Bank will go to next agency round the corner to get better rating and agency will lose commission. You can see the problem here.   Now if people start struggling to pay loan, bank will not get money and it cannot pay CDO holders. If house that was worth $100000 when CDO was created is devalued to say $50000 today the underlying asset is not worth as much when CDO was sold. That is what happened when market crashed in 2008 and GFC hit. Actually, you're missing the key feature of CDOs.  Most CDOs use (much to our economic misery, ultimately) a system call tranching.  To simplify this idea, I'll make a two tranch example.  Suppose I buy mortgages covering a face value of $120,000,000.  Because they are subprime, if I just put them in a pool and finance them with bonds, the rating will be lousy and most investors will shun them (at least investors who are safety oriented).  What I do is divide them into two tranches.  One bond issue is for $100,000,000 and another for $20,000,000.  The idea is that any defaulting mortgage comes out of the latter bond issue.  I'll probably keep these bonds (the lower tranch).  Thus buyers of the first issue are safe unless defaults exceed $20,000,000.  Then the rating agencies rate the first issue AAA and it gets snapped up by investors.  In a strict sense it is overcollateralized, basically the entire $120,000,000 backs up the first bond issue. In reality, many CDOs had multiple tranches, with the lowest tranch being retained by the underwriters and the other tranches sold as bonds of various ratings.
No.  The WSJ prime rate is 4.25%, even the Fed prime rate is 1.75%, way above the 1.20% you'll be making from your savings account. If you are high worth individual with great credit history, the bank might give you a personal loan at 4.25%. They won't care what you do with it as long as they get their payments. If you are not that creditworthy, they'll ask for a collateral, you can mortgage your house for example. It ends up being the sames thing, you get your money and do what you want with it. If you can make more than the interest rate the bank gave you, great, you made profit. The bank however won't agree to lend you money at 0.6% (1/2 of the 1.2% APY your savings account will bring). Why would they when they can loan that at prime rate of 4.25%?? The closest you can get to something like this is if you are a hot-shot wall street money manager with track record of making big profits. In that case the bank might put some money in your fund for you to manage, but that's not something a regular person can do. I am trying to learn about Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO) and I was wondering how the tranches are created in terms of priority. When an investor comes to CLO manager to buy a stake or a tranch, do they get to decide what type of tranch they want? Less risky one that gets paid first or higher risky one that gets paid last but more? Or is it like first come first serve basis? "Often the counter-party has obligations with respect to timelines as well -- if your buying a house, the seller probably is too, and may have a time-sensitive obligation to close on the deal. I'm that scenario, carrying the second mortgage may be enough to make that deal fall through or result in some other negative impact. Note that ""pre-approval"" means very little, banks can and do pass on deals, even if the buyer has a good payment history. That's especially true when the economy is not so hot -- bankers in 2011 are worried about not losing money... In 2006, they were worried about not making enough!" "As a legal contract, a mortgage is a form of secured debt. In the case of a mortgage, the debt is secured using the property asset as collateral. So ""no"", there is no such thing as a mortgage contract without a property to act as collateral. Is it a good idea?  In the current low interest rate environment, people with good income and credit can obtain a creditline from their bank at a rate comparable to current mortgage rates.  However, if you wish to setup a credit line for an amount comparable to a mortgage, then you will need to secure it with some form of collateral." IMO they were just being dicks.  I don't know if they are required to provide the payoff amount, but they should be able to at any point in time.  edit: I have mortgage experience.  I didn't see this too often, but borrowers sometimes payoff/include other debts on refis.  This requires a payoff statement from their creditors.  I've never heard of a closing getting pushed back to the next month due to a creditor not being able to provide the payoff. "Thanks!  I came across many books on credit risk in my google searches - what I'm really looking for is which one is the ""industry standard"" reading (does that make sense?). For example, in derivatives, everybody recommends John C. Hull's Options... book. Why of all the CRM books, do you recommend those three in particular?" You don't always have a choice. If you RTA, this is about loans that BoA bought from other lenders, or banks they acquired. If there is such a thing as a conventional mortgage contract that cannot be sold to another bank, I have never heard of it.   Any bank you borrow from is generally free to re-sell the loan to any other bank. You agree to the contract, not the name on the letterhead. You're not responsible for the mortgages on the property - those are agreements between the lender and the borrower. The risk you have is that the title search missed something.  If the seller (i.e., the bank or banks who foreclosed) did not have full rights to sell the property, and there was another party who had a lien on the property or had an interest in it in some fashion, that party could make a claim that would interfere with your purchase.  You wouldn't be responsible for the loan, but you might not end up with the title to the property if that happened.