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Working Paper
Mortgage Loss Severities: What Keeps Them So High?
Mortgage loss-given-default (LGD) increased significantly when house prices plummeted and delinquencies rose during the financial crisis, but it has remained over 40 percent in recent years despite a strong housing recovery. Our results indicate that the sustained high LGDs post-crisis are due to a combination of an overhang of crisis-era foreclosures and prolonged foreclosure timelines, which have offset higher sales recoveries. Simulations show that cutting foreclosure timelines by one year would cause LGD to decrease by 5?8 percentage points, depending on the trade-off between lower ...
Working Paper
A cost-benefit analysis of judicial foreclosure delay and a preliminary look at new mortgage servicing rules
Since the start of the financial crisis, we have seen an extraordinary lengthening of foreclosure timelines, particularly in states that require judicial review to complete a foreclosure but also recently in nonjudicial states. Our analysis synthesizes findings from several lines of research, updates results, and presents new analysis to examine the costs and benefits of judicial foreclosure review. Consistent with previous studies, we find that judicial review imposes large costs with few, if any, offsetting benefits. We also provide early analysis of the new mortgage servicing rules enacted ...
Working Paper
CMBS Market Evolution and Emerging Risks
We study the evolution of the private-label CMBS market from one dominated by broadly diversified long-term, fixed-rate conduit securitizations to one dominated in 2021–22 by undiversified short-term, floating-rate Single-Asset, Single-Borrower (SASB) securitizations. Twenty-five years of stable bond returns and exceptionally low losses help explain the growth and standardization of the SASB market following the Global Financial Crisis. Historically low interest rates and pandemic-era dislocations help explain the recent dominance of short-term, floating-rate SASBs. Factors contributing to ...
Conference Paper
The trust preferred CDO market : from start to (expected) finish
Working Paper
The impact of student loan debt on small business formation
Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy and account for approximately one-half of the private-sector economy and 99% of all businesses. To start a small business, individuals need access to capital. Given the importance of an entrepreneur?s personal debt capacity in financing a startup business, student loan debt, which is difficult to discharge via bankruptcy, can have lasting effects and may have an impact on the ability of future small business owners to raise capital. This study examines the impact of the growth in student debt on net small business formation. We find a ...
Working Paper
REGIME SHIFT AND THE POST-CRISIS WORLD OF MORTGAGE LOSS SEVERITIES
The average loss rate for conventional mortgages rose from less than 10% pre-crisis to more than 30% during the crisis, reaching and sustaining greater than 40% post-crisis. Using a novel database that contains the components of mortgage losses, we identify a regime shift in loss severities caused by various government interventions and changes in business practices in the servicing industry. This regime shift helps explain the persistently high loss severities post-crisis, even after a strong recovery in the housing market. Our findings have implications for loss modeling, pricing, and, ...
Working Paper
The trust preferred CDO market: from start to (expected) finish
This paper investigates the development, issuance, structuring, and expected performance of the trust preferred securities collateralized debt obligation (TruPS CDO) market. Developed as a way to provide capital markets access to smaller banks, thrifts, insurance companies, and real estate investment trusts (REITs) by pooling the issuance of TruPS into marketable CDOs, the market grew to $60 billion of issuance from its inception in 2000 through its abrupt halt in 2007. As evidenced by rating agency downgrades, current performance, and estimates from the authors' own model, TruPS CDOs are ...
Working Paper
Designing loan modifications to address the mortgage crisis and the making home affordable program
Delinquencies on residential mortgages and home foreclosures have risen dramatically in the past couple of years. The mortgage losses triggered a broad-based financial crisis and severe recession, which, in turn, exacerbated the initial financial distress faced by homeowners. Although servicers increased their loss mitigation efforts as defaults began to mount, foreclosures continued to occur in cases where both the borrower and investor would be better off if such an outcome were avoided. The U.S. government has engaged in a number of initiatives to reduce such foreclosures. This paper ...
Working Paper
Asymmetric Information and the Death of ABS CDOs
A key feature of the 2007 financial crisis is that for many securities trading had ceased; where trading did occur, market prices were well below intrinsic values, especially for ABS CDOs. One explanation is that information had been asymmetric, with sellers having better information than buyers. We first show the information advantages sellers had over buyers in both the issuance of CDOs and, through vertical integration, performance of the CDO collateral that could well have disrupted trading after the onset of the crisis. Using a ?workhorse" model for pricing securities under asymmetric ...