In this paper we identify the relationship of the pricing of residential mortgage lending products to their market share during the run up to the financial crisis of 2007. We then use this relationship to decompose the total impact of nontraditional mortgage products on house price declines...

This paper identifies for the first time the impact of borrowing constraints in the recent decline in homeownership rates. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF), we measure the combined impact of income, wealth and credit constraints on homeownership outcomes over time. It has...

Sun, Titman, and Twite (2015) find that risky capital structure characteristics, such as high leverage, high share of debt due in the near future and high share of variable-rate debt, significantly reduce the cumulative total returns of US REITs over the 2007-2009 financial crisis. In this paper...

There are persistent differences in homeownership rates across racial and ethnic groups. Homeownership rates for whites are over 20 percentage points higher than for blacks or Hispanics. This paper uses a model of the housing tenure decision to gain a better understanding of these racial and...

In January 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will face a decision: to renew its special definition for Qualified Mortgages (QMs) made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, abolish that definition, or adopt some other approach to Qualified Mortgages. Concerns about access to credit have...

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Congress required residential mortgage lenders to make a reasonable determination of borrowers' ability to repay before extending credit. Most regard this ability-to-repay rule as a consumer protection provision. But what is less well appreciated is the...