The purpose of this paper is to examine barriers to entry in an insurance market wherein banks are an integral part of the distribution system: Title insurance. We draw some broad comparisons between the distribution channels used to sell title insurance and the entry strategy used by banks...

This paper studies the performance of private property companies in 13 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and the UK for the period of 1990 to 2003. We find large differences between the countries with the most...

Predatory lending, the origination of loans with abusive terms to homeowners, is rampant in the subprime mortgage market. In the last few years, many states responded to this problem by enacting consumer protection laws. Large segments of the lending industry have opposed these laws. In large...

This study investigates why externally advised Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) underperform their internally managed counterparts. Consistent with previous studies, we find that REITs managed by external advisors underperform internally managed ones by over 7% per year. Property-level cash...

In this paper, we analyze the performance of the Swedish real estate sector by various profitability measures. We use an unbalanced panel of 781 non-listed companies from 1998 to 2000 with 3421 observations. There exists large regional and sectorial differences in performance but it is not due...

The DuPont equation links the equity and asset returns through equity multiplier. Another version of this model accounts for taxes and the cost of debt. Real estate investments generate return from rental income and capital gains. These two sources are taxed differently, both due the frequency...

We calculate the ex-post, realized portfolio performance for an investor who diversifies among U.S. stocks, bonds, real estate indirect investment vehicles (E-REITS), and cash. Simulations are performed for two alternative asset allocation frameworks - classical and Bayesian - and for scenarios...

Where borrowers are personally liable for shortfalls when they default on their mortgages, lenders have to exercise a duty of good faith in securing a reasonable value for the foreclosed property. The lender is entitled to recover the outstanding loan as quickly as possible, and is not bound to...

Both the real estate brokerage and the real estate investment trusts (REIT) industries have experienced dramatic structural and institutional changes in the last few years. These changes have brought the issue of operating efficiencies to the forefront. In this article, we summarize and...