This paper identifies an important mechanism through which the homeownership gap among racial groups can be narrowed. The effects of skills achieved in early adulthood—as measured by the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) score, the Rotter score, and a Social skill score based on Demings...

Using a unique and nationally representative data set, the National Mortgage Database borrower sample (NMDB-borrower), this paper introduces a novel measure of homeownership sustainability, homeownership longevity and examines patterns of sustainable homeownership across multiple mortgage...

The effects of skills achieved in early adulthood—as measured by the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) score, the Rotter score, and Deming’s (2017) Social score—are shown to impact education, income, and homeownership levels achieved in later life. Mediation analysis is used to identify...

In Housing Economics, filtering is the process by which properties, as they age, depreciate in quality and hence price and thus tend to be purchased by lower-income households. This is the primary mechanism by which competitive markets supply low-income housing. While at the national level...

The precision of appraisals used to refinance mortgages is particularly difficult to evaluate because there are no sales prices to serve as a basis for comparison. This paper estimates the accuracy of refinance appraisals using a novel methodology that does not require using a sales price as a...