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Working Paper
Redefault Risk in the Aftermath of the Mortgage Crisis: Why Did Modifications Improve More Than Self-Cures?
This paper examines changes in the redefault rate of mortgages that were selected for modification during 2008?2011, compared with that of similarly situated self-cured mortgages. We find a large decline in the redefault rate of both modified and self-cured mortgages over this period, but the improvement was greatest for modifications. Our analysis has identified several important factors contributing to the greater improvement for modified loans, including an increasing share of principal-reduction modifications, which appear to be more effective than other types of modification and ...
Working Paper
A Shortage of Short Sales: Explaining the Underutilization of a Foreclosure Alternative
The Great Recession led to widespread mortgage defaults, with borrowers resorting to both foreclosures and short sales to resolve their defaults. I first quantify the economic impact of foreclosures relative to short sales by comparing the home price implications of both. After accounting for omitted variable bias, I find that homes selling as short sales transact at 9.2% to 10.5% higher prices on average than those that sell after foreclosure. Short sales also exert smaller negative externalities than foreclosures, with one short sale decreasing nearby property values by 1 percentage point ...
Working Paper
Redefault Risk in the Aftermath of the Mortgage Crisis: Why Did Modifications Improve More Than Self-Cures?
This paper examines changes in the redefault rate of mortgages that were selected for modification during 2008?2011, compared with that of similarly situated self-cured mortgages during the same period. We find that while the performance of both modified and self-cured loans improved dramatically over this period, the decline in the redefault rate for modified loans was substantially larger, and we attribute this difference to a few key factors. First, the modification terms regarding repayments have become increasingly more generous, including more principal reduction, resulting in greater ...