This paper explores the question of whether market participants could have or should have anticipated the large increase in foreclosures that occurred in 2007 and 2008. Most of these foreclosures stem from loans originated in 2005 and 2006, leading many to suspect that lenders originated a large...

We specify a new model of homeowner mortgage default. In our model, homeowners do not know the current price of their home until they sell; rather, they maintain an unbiased guess of the price and optimally update this guess as new information, such as the sale price of similar homes, is...