Mortgage loans are a striking example of a persistent nominal rigidity. As a result, under incomplete markets, monetary policy affects decisions through the cost of new mortgage borrowing and the value of payments on outstanding debt. Observed debt levels and payment to income ratios suggest the...

Mortgage loans are a striking example of a persistent nominal rigidity. As a result, under incomplete markets, monetary policy affects decisions through the cost of new mortgage borrowing and the value of payments on outstanding debt. Observed debt levels and payment to income ratios suggest the...

We show that since 1994, branching deregulations in the U.S have significantly affected the supply of mortgage credit, and ultimately house prices. With deregulation, the number and volume of originated mortgage loans increase, while denial rates fall. But the deregulation has no effect on a...

The confluence of three trends in the U.S. residential housing market - rising home prices, declining interest rates, and near-frictionless refinancing opportunities - led to vastly increased systemic risk in the financial system. Individually, each of these trends is benign, but when they occur...

We use a model and show how inflation and mortgage loans based on nominal interest rates (NRMs), like FRMs, ARMs or IOs, are a source of instability for housing markets. NRMs allocate risk inappropriately and cause economic tensions due to the tilt effect (Lessard and Modigliani, 1975), the...

Current technology allows many analysts to use regularly a complete population of sold prices of all property types derived from courthouse deed recordings. Access to the complete population of current and historic prices eliminates the need for samples, which minimizes use of much of the...

During the late 1990s and up to 2007, several countries experienced sharp increases in house prices. These episodes are usually mentioned among the causes of the world's recent economic and financial turmoil. The dramatic growth in bank lending during this period has been held broadly...

There is a growing consensus that reform is needed for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is often suggested that the connections between the GSEs and the federal government should be permanently severed and the firms reduced in size so that their...

Can inflation cure mortgage debt overhang and mitigate the severity of housing busts? Focusing on the Great Recession, I address this question through the lens of a quantitative macroeconomic model of illiquid housing, endogenous mortgage pricing, and equilibrium default. First, I show that an...

This paper investigates the macroeconomic effects of search risk in the housing market. To do so, I introduce a tractable directed search model of housing with multidimensional buyer and seller heterogeneity. I incorporate this framework in an incomplete markets macroeconomic model with...