Using a property-level data set of houses in Los Angeles County, I estimate that 30% of the recent surge in mortgage defaults is attributable to early home-buyers who would not have defaulted had they not borrowed against the rising value of their homes during the boom. I develop and estimate a...

This article presents findings from the HMDA data through 2016. The number of mortgage originations in 2016 rose 13 percent from 2015. Black and Hispanic white borrowers increased their share of home-purchase loans for the third straight year. The share of mortgages originated by nondepository,...

Non-banks originated about half of all mortgages in 2016, and 75% of mortgages insured by the FHA or VA. Both shares are much higher than those observed at any point in the 2000s. We describe in this paper how non-bank mortgage companies are vulnerable to liquidity pressures in both their loan...

Since the housing bust and financial crisis, mortgage lenders have introduced progressively higher minimum thresholds for acceptable credit scores. Using loan-level data, we document the introduction of these thresholds, as well as their effects on the distribution of newly originated mortgages....