This paper documents and examines the rise in mortgage usage among older Americans over the past 30 years. It uses data from a variety of sources including the Health and Retirement Study, Decennial Census, American Community Survey, Survey of Consumer Finances, and the American Housing Survey....

3.6 million more older American households have a mortgage than 2000, contributing to an increase in mortgage usage among the elderly of thirty-nine percent. Rather than collecting imputed rent, older households are borrowing against home equity, potentially with loan terms that exceed their...

Starting in 2008, the number of homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure began increasing dramatically. Given that troubled borrowers may not fully understand their options for modifying their mortgage, lenders and policymakers have reacted to rising foreclosure filings by increasing the use...

Prior to 2010 regulatory changes, lenders faced few penalties for disclosing inaccurate mortgage closing costs to borrowers during the mortgage application process. Given this policy context, lenders might have intentionally understated closing costs in order to lure unsuspecting borrowers into...

Using 2005 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, this study explores problematic mortgage application behaviors including submitting incomplete paperwork when seeking a mortgage, withdrawing a loan application before the lender makes a credit decision, rejecting a lender approved loan offer and...

Due to the rise in foreclosure filings, policymakers are increasingly concerned with helping families in financial distress keep their homes. This paper tests the extent to which distressed mortgage borrowers benefit from three types of state foreclosure polices: (1) judicial foreclosure...