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Journal Article
Fannie Mae sets new guidelines to combat predatory lending
Journal Article
Mortgage applicants turn to credit unions after the crisis
Journal Article
Servicer performance in processing HAMP loan modifications: a survey of Massachusetts-based counseling agencies
The Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) attempts to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by compensating servicers that allow borrowers to modify the terms of their mortgages. To understand the seemingly troubled HAMP process, the Community Development unit of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank of Boston administered surveys to loan-modification counselors. The results indicate that the process takes much longer than the guidelines indicate and that servicers frequently claim the applications are incomplete. The surveys were run twice to assess any improvements.
Working Paper
Liquidity Crises in the Mortgage Market
Non-banks originated about half of all mortgages in 2016, and 75% of mortgages insured by the FHA or VA. Both shares are much higher than those observed at any point in the 2000s. We describe in this paper how non-bank mortgage companies are vulnerable to liquidity pressures in both their loan origination and servicing activities, and we document that this sector in aggregate appears to have minimal resources to bring to bear in a stress scenario. We show how the same liquidity issues unfolded during the financial crisis, leading to the failure of many non-bank companies, requests for ...
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 ...
Journal Article
How home loan modification through the 60/40 plan can save the housing sector
Many well-respected economists have suggested plans for mortgage restructuring built on the idea of share appreciation mortgages, which generate rather complex transactions with conflicting interests between the lender and the homeowner. The 60/40 Plan, however, combines several economic principles adapted to the nature of home loans and appears to provide all the benefits but fewer of the drawbacks of many of these programs, including current government programs such as the Home Affordable Refinance (HARP) and Home Affordable Modification (HAMP) programs. For example, HARP homeowners must ...
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 ...