This paper examines the role of information advantages in the returns to housing investments using novel data on rental contracts. Real estate agents are found to obtain higher contract rents by about 1 percent more for landlords who hold a real estate license (or are personally affiliated with...

We examine the effects of pandemic risk factors and the Federal government's Payment Protection Program (PPP) on the performance of securitized commercial mortgages. Using administrative data that allow us to observe county-level variation in mortgage performance by property type, we find that...

We use artificial intelligence to identify financial steering activity in residential mortgage markets. Using mortgage data on bank sold properties and linking those to a unique data set that allows us to observe private information exchanges between listing and buyer agents, our results provide...

We study the effect of a change in trustees' incentives to monitor servicers in CMBS markets. Our identification strategy rests on variation in servicer-trustee affiliation that arises from mergers. We present evidence that affiliation is associated with excessive principal and interest advances...

We test for pricing disparities in mortgage contracts using a novel dataset that allows us to observe the race and ethnicity of both parties to the loan. We find that minorities pay between three and five percent more in fees than similarly qualified whites when obtaining a loan through the same...

We present novel evidence showing how the financing choice of landlords impacts eviction decisions in rental markets. Since multifamily loans rely on timely rental payments, strict underwriting factors can increase the chances that landlords withstand income shocks. Lender provided relief may...

This paper presents a first view on the effects of COVID-19 and subsequent shutdown and re-opening orders on residential real estate markets. We use micro-level data on property transactions from a large number of multiple listing services and find moderate aggregate pricing effects in the...