In this study, we make use of a massive database of mortgage defaults to estimate REO liquidation timelines and time-related costs resulting from the recent post-crisis interventions in the mortgage market and the freezing of foreclosures due to “robo-signing” revelations. The cost of delay,...

This article performs an exercise in which we identify the potential impact of key drivers of home ownership rates on home ownership outcomes by 2050. We take no position on whether these key determinants in fact will come about. Rather we perform an exercise in which we test for their impact....

The author argues that more than one borrower in every five could face foreclosure absent stronger policy measures. The solution is to (1) reduce the housing supply through a modification program that explicitly addresses negative equity and (2) increase housing demand by expanding the...

This is a discussion of the fundamentals underlying a proprietary thirty-year conventional perfect current-coupon projection model. This model measures the richness or cheapness of the current-coupon mortgage as a function of the fundamental variables that influence mortgage pricing: the level...

The first part of this paper provides a historical perspective on bank risks. Five-year moving average measures of total risk, market risk, and nonmarket risk are computed for an index of New York banks from 1929-1975 and for an index of outside New York banks from 1950-1976.We use a carefully...

Two- to four-family properties make up 19% of all rental housing but receive almost no attention. Using a unique dataset from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, we show that, for any given set of loan characteristics and compared with one-unit properties, two- to four-unit properties are more likely to...

In this article we analyze new loan-level data recently released by Freddie Mac on more than 17 million single-family mortgages to reveal a range of new and useful insights into the ultimate financial losses associated with a loan after it experiences a credit event. We conclude that mortgage...

While Veterans Administration (VA) mortgages and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgages are often lumped together as “government mortgages”, the programs have significant differences, as do the borrowers who use them. In addition, delinquency rates on VA loans have consistently been...