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This article was originally posted on americanbanker.com on April 2, 2013
Since the 1930s, when the Federal Housing Administration published its earliest underwriting manuals, mortgage lenders have used a loan applicant's debt-to-income ratio to measure his or her ability to pay a mortgage loan. But lenders today typically count only a limited basket of loan applicant expenses toward DTI: the new mortgage payment, taxes and insurance and other loan payments.