Most mortgages in the United States are securitized through the agency mortgage-backed-securities (MBS) market. These … liquidity, leading to lower borrowing costs for households. Evaluation of potential reforms to the U.S. housing finance system …

Fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) dominate the U.S. mortgage market, with important consequences for household risk … freezes, the share of FRMs is sharply higher among mortgages eligible to be securitized through the still-liquid agency MBS … rate risk embedded in these loans. We highlight policy implications for ongoing reform of the U.S. mortgage finance system. …

underperformance (high mortgage defaults and losses and large rating downgrades) among deals with observably higher risk mortgages …

underperformance (high mortgage defaults and losses and large rating downgrades) among deals with observably higher risk mortgages …

Over the past several years, U.S. homebuyers have increasingly favored fixed-rate mortgages over adjustable …-rate mortgages (ARMs). Indeed, ARMs have dropped to less than 10 percent of all residential mortgage originations, a near-record low … different types of mortgages. Supply-side factors, in particular a rise in the share of mortgages eligible to be securitized by …

We describe a set of six design principles for the reorganization of the U.S. housing finance system and apply them to …