[As reported in the ABI Newsletter] A report by Arlington, Va.-based investment bank Friedman, Billings, Ramsey showed that borrowers who took out loans in the first six months of 2007 are falling behind on payments faster than homeowners who took out loans last year, the New York Times reported today. The report said that most mortgage companies and banks had not tightened lending standards for subprime borrowers until July or August, even though early this year regulators, analysts and mortgage investors knew that the easy lending policies of 2005 and 2006 were producing high default rates. Michael D. Youngblood, a portfolio manager and analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, noted that Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest lender whose practices are often emulated by smaller companies, did not significantly tighten standards until August. As of August, default rates on adjustable-rate subprime mortgages written in 2007 had reached 8.05 percent, up from 5.77 percent in July, according to Youngblood’s analysis of pools of home loans put together by Wall Street banks and sold to investors. By comparison, only 5.36 percent of such loans made last year had defaulted by August 2006. Default rates on fixed-rate subprime mortgages were lower, but were rising at a similar pace.