The lender was taking on all kinds of risk of not getting their money back, and a 4.8% rate gives very little cushion to cover exogenous events. (like, say, a housing crash, or severe inflation, or simple unemployment by homeowners.) They would have to collect on damn near every dollar to make that lending profitable enough, in aggregate, to be worthwhile.posted by Malor at 1:42 PM on December 30, 201