Search Results
Journal Article
District Digest: The Roles of Single-Family Housing Investors, Big and Small, in the Fifth District
Single-family housing investors have received more public scrutiny over the past several years as their share of overall home purchases has grown while housing was becoming less affordable due to a national supply crunch. Institutional investors have especially been capturing headlines recently, as homes have become more expensive since 2020 due to increased demand and dwindling supply. But this type of investor has only been active in single-family markets in large numbers over the past 15 years; most single-family investment home purchases are still made by smaller investors. And while ...
Journal Article
Introduction to Special Issue: The Appropriate Role of Government in U.S. Mortgage Markets
The U.S. mortgage finance system was one of the focal points of the 2007-08 financial crisis, yet legislative decisions about the appropriate role of the federal government in the system remain unsettled. Policy deliberations have focused on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?the two enormous government-sponsored enterprises that were placed into federal conservatorship in September 2008. The two GSEs have long been the centerpieces of a mortgage finance system that relies on capital market financing of U.S. residential mortgages. This volume contains eight articles that touch on several key ...
Newsletter
Helping Homeowners During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Lessons from the Great Recession
The Covid-19 public health crisis has sharply reduced the earnings of millions of U.S. households, following the severe curtailment of economic activity needed to contain the spread of the virus. Meanwhile, households continue to confront their ongoing financial obligations. The ability of households to manage these obligations has important consequences for the speed at which the U.S. economy can recover from the current crisis. Households that are wiped out financially in the coming months will not be in a position to strongly resume spending once the virus containment issues have passed. ...
Working Paper
The Postwar Conquest of the Home Ownership Dream
Post-World War II witnessed the largest housing boom in recent history. This paper develops a quantitative equilibrium model of tenure choice to analyze the key determinants in the co-movement between home-ownership and house prices over the period 1940-1960. The parameterized model matches key features and is capable of accounting for the observed housing boom. The key driver in understanding this boom is an asymmetric productivity change that favors the goods sector relative to the construction sector. Other factors such as demographics, income risk, and government policy are important ...
Working Paper
The rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
We describe and evaluate the measures taken by the U.S. government to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008. We begin by outlining the business model of these two firms and their role in the U.S. housing finance system. Our focus then turns to the sources of financial distress that the firms experienced and the events that ultimately led the government to take action in an effort to stabilize housing and financial markets. We describe the various resolution options available to policymakers at the time and evaluate the success of the choice of conservatorship, and other actions ...
Speech
Informing the Future of Housing Finance: Lessons from the Recent Past
A speech delivered by Charles Evans before the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership Community Breakfast on August 24, 2010 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Working Paper
The Impact of Credit Risk Mispricing on Mortgage Lending during the Subprime Boom
We provide new evidence that credit supply shifts contributed to the U.S. subprime mortgage boom and bust. We collect original data on both government and private mortgage insurance premiums from 1999-2016, and document that prior to 2008, premiums did not vary across loans with widely different observable characteristics that we show were predictors of default risk. Then, using a set of post-crisis insurance premiums to fit a model of default behavior, and allowing for time-varying expectations about house price appreciation, we quantify the mispricing of default risk in premiums prior to ...
Speech
Remarks at the Economic Press Briefing on Homeownership and Housing Wealth, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City
Remarks at the Economic Press Briefing on Homeownership and Housing Wealth, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City.
Discussion Paper
Land at Risk: Heirs' Property in the Carolinas
In 2021, the Richmond Fed highlighted the issue of heirs' property (and its prevalence in Maryland and Virginia) in a Regional Matters post. Heirs' property occurs when land is transferred from one generation to the next without a clear will or definition of land ownership. Since multiple heirs can lay claim to a parcel of land, heirs' property can impede or complicate the sale of the land or the ability of owners to prove ownership, among other challenges.Using the same methodology for North Carolina and South Carolina, this Regional Matters illustrates the prevalence of heirs' property ...
Report
The rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
We describe and evaluate the measures taken by the U.S. government to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008. We begin by outlining the business model of these two firms and their role in the U.S. housing finance system. Our focus then turns to the sources of financial distress that the firms experienced and the events that ultimately led the government to take action in an effort to stabilize housing and financial markets. We describe the various resolution options available to policymakers at the time and evaluate the success of the choice of conservatorship, and other actions ...