ABSTRACT The cause of the "housing bubble" associated with the sharp rise and then drop in home prices over the period 1998-2008 has been the focus of significant policy and research attention. The dramatic increase in subprime lending during this period has been broadly blamed for these market...

We examine the use of simultaneous close junior lien lending ("piggybacks") over the course of the recent housing bubble and subsequent mortgage market collapse. Using both state-level and Zip code-level data over the period 2001-2008, we find that the fraction of piggyback originations is...