Equity Release Products Allowing for Individual House Price Risk

This paper quantifies the impacts of individual house price risk on the pricing of equity release products. An individual house price model is employed to explain house price variations by heterogeneous characteristics. A Vector Auto-Regression (VAR) model is adopted to project the overall house price index and risk-adjusted discount factors. Indices for houses with various characteristics are linked to the overall house price index by using a VAR Model with Exogenous Variables (VARX). The results indicate that the price of the No Negative Equity Guarantees (NNEGs) typically included in reverse mortgages is significantly undervalued without taking into account individual house price risk