This week I was lucky to interview Ellen Harnick, Senior Policy Counsel, the Center for Responsible Lending. She has testified in front of Congress on more than one occasion regarding lending and consumer issues.

I’m a novice at using Skype in a podcast so the quality was a little dicey at times with delays – like we were speaking via satellite – but it seemed to improve throughout the interview (after all, the Internet is a series of tubes).

Ellen and I have spoken at length on prior occasions about US lending practices. I find her to be someone who can listen to my experiences – the insanity that appraisers are faced with – and understand the ramifications (plus not get frazzled by my incessant interruptions).  She provides a great perspective from the consumer side and is passionate and knowledgeable about the subject matter.

Here’s a transcript of her recent appearance on NewsHour with Jim Lehr.

The crisis started, actually, with these very tricky mortgages that had confusing terms and some of their costs were obscured. And as those mortgages started to fail, we saw foreclosures rise.

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