Takes a skeptical look at a leading argument about what is causing the foreclosure crisis and what should be done to stop it. The authors focus on two key decisions: the borrower's choice to default on a mortgage and the lender's subsequent choice whether to renegotiate or modify the loan. Unaffordable loans, defined as those with high mortgage payments relative to income at origination, are unlikely to be the main reason that borrowers decide to default. The efficiency of foreclosure for investors is a more plausible explanation for the low number of modifications to date. Policies designed to reduce foreclosures should focus on ameliorating the effects of job loss rather than modifying loans to make them more affordable on a long-term basis. Illustrations.
The authors develop an equilibrium valuation model that incorporates optimal default to show how mortgage yields and lender recovery rates on defaulted mortgages depend on initial loan-to-value (LTV) ratios. The analysis treats both the frictionless case and the case in which borrowers and lenders incur deadweight costs upon default. The model is calibrated using data on California mortgages. Given reasonable parameter values, the model does a surprisingly good job fitting the risk premium in the data for high LTV mortgages. Thus, from an ex ante perspective, the authors do not find strong evidence of systematic underpricing of default risk in the run-up to the housing market crisis. Charts and tables.
Provides an overview of the subprime mortgage securitization process and the seven key informational frictions that arise. Discusses the ways that market participants work to minimize these frictions and speculate on how this process broke down. Continues with a complete picture of the subprime borrower and the subprime loan, discussing both predatory borrowing and predatory lending. Presents the key structural features of a typical subprime securitization, documents how rating agencies assign credit ratings to mortgage-backed securities, and outlines how these agencies monitor the performance of mortgage pools over time. The authors draw upon the example of a mortgage pool securitized by New Century Financial during 2006. Illustrations.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.
This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Servicers have been reluctant to renegotiate mortgages since the foreclosure crisis started in 2007, having performed payment-reducing modifications on only 3% of seriously delinquent loans. This reluctance does not result from securitization: Servicers renegotiate similarly small fractions of loans that they hold in their portfolios. The paper¿s results are robust to different definitions of renegotiation, including the one most likely to be affected by securitization, and to different definitions of delinquency. Redefault risk, the possibility that a borrower will still default despite costly renegotiation, and self-cure risk, the possibility that a seriously delinquent borrower will become current without renegotiation, make renegotiation unattractive to investors. Illus.
This paper incorporates house price risk and mortgages into a standard incomplete market (SIM) model. The model is calibrated to match U.S. data and accounts for non-targeted features of the data such as the distribution of down payments, the life-cycle profile of home ownership, and the mortgage default rate. The average coefficients that measure the agents' ability to self-insure against income shocks are similar to those of a SIM model without housing but housing increases the values of these coefficients for younger agents. The response of consumption to house price shocks is minimal. The introduction of minimum down payments or income garnishment benefits a majority of the population.
