Home appraisals are produced for millions of residential mortgage transactions each year, but appraised values are rarely below the purchase contract price: Some 30% of appraisals in our sample are exactly at the home price (with less than 10% of them below it). We lay out a basic theoretical...

Preface: The American dream -- The homewreckers : a cast of characters -- The salesman -- A squandered opportunity -- A run on the bank -- Life on Park Avenue -- The vultures circle -- A mortgage discovered -- Foreclosure machine -- ColFin AI-CA5 LLC -- Polo ponies and wine -- For infinity --...

"In September 2008, beset by mounting losses on high-risk mortgages and mortgage securities, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation teetered on the brink of insolvency. Fearing that confidence in the housing market would collapse completely if Freddie Mac and its competitor Fannie Mae...