In 2007, the United States began to experience its worst housing and foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression. In response, policymakers have been devising foreclosure prevention plans, most of which focus on loan modifications. This article begins with an overview of the different loss...

We assess the credit market impact of allowing mortgage "strip-down" as a foreclosure-prevention measure, where strip-down reduces the principal of underwater residential mortgages to the current market value of the property for homeowners in Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Our identification is provided...

Ten years after the mortgage crisis, the U.S. housing market has rebounded significantly with house prices now near the peak achieved during the boom. Homeownership rates, on the other hand, have continued to decline. We reconcile the two phenomena by documenting the rising presence of...