Using a property-level data set of houses in Los Angeles County, I estimate that 30% of the recent surge in mortgage defaults is attributable to early home-buyers who would not have defaulted had they not borrowed against the rising value of their homes during the boom. I develop and estimate a...

We construct a new "list-price index" that accurately reveals trends in house prices several months before existing sales price indices like Case-Shiller. Our index is based on the repeat-sales approach but for recent months uses listings data, which are available essentially in real time,...