In mortgage debt contracts, real property serves as collateral and the terms of mortgage financing are largely conditional on the certification of collateral value by appraisers. However, overstatement of collateral value is common in the appraisal industry, causing troubles in the mortgage...

Lenders' access to soft information on appraisal inflation could lead to adverse selection in private mortgage securitization. Combining a nationwide mortgage data with a real estate transaction data and using a difference-in-differences empirical design, we document that securitized refinance...