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Working Paper
Owner occupancy fraud and mortgage performance
We use a matched credit bureau and mortgage data set to identify occupancy fraud in residential mortgage originations, that is, borrowers who misrepresented their occupancy status as owner occupants rather than residential real estate investors. In contrast to previous studies, our data set allows us to show that such fraud was broad based, appearing in the government-sponsored enterprise market and in loans held on bank portfolios as well. Mortgage borrowers who misrepresented their occupancy status performed worse than otherwise similar owner occupants and declared investors, defaulting at ...
Working Paper
Mortgage-default research and the recent foreclosure crisis
This paper reviews recent research on mortgage default, focusing on the relationship of this research to the recent foreclosure crisis. Research on defaults was advanced both theoretically and empirically by the time the crisis began, but economists have moved the frontier further by improving data sources, building dynamic optimizing models of default, and explicitly addressing reverse causality between rising foreclosures and falling house prices. Mortgage defaults were also a key component of early research that pointed to subprime and other privately securitized mortgages as fundamental ...
Working Paper
Foreclosure delay and consumer credit performance
Supersedes Working Paper 14-8. The deep housing market recession from 2008 through 2010 was characterized by a steep rise in the number of foreclosures and lengthening foreclosure timelines. The average length of time from the onset of delinquency through the end of the foreclosure process also expanded significantly, averaging up to three years in some states. Most individuals undergoing foreclosure were experiencing serious financial stress. However, the extended foreclosure timelines enabled mortgage defaulters to live in their homes without making mortgage payments until the end of the ...
Working Paper
Securitization and mortgage default
We find that private-securitized loans perform worse than observably similar, nonsecuritized loans, which provides evidence for adverse selection. The effect of securitization is strongest for prime mortgages, which have not been studied widely in the previous literature and particular prime adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs): These become delinquent at a 30 percent higher rate when privately securitized. By contrast, our baseline estimates for subprime mortgages show that private-securitized loans default at lower rates. We show, however, that ?early defaulting loans? account for this: those ...