Alan M. White

Risk-Based Mortgage Pricing: Present and Future Research

Abstract The debate surrounding predatory lending laws and the subprime mortgage market revolves around two hypotheses. The efficient‐pricing hypothesis says that the market is providing broader access to credit, offering higher rates and fees to higher‐risk borrowers, and that prices relate directly to risk. The opportunity‐pricing hypothesis says that the high interest rates and fees charged in the subprime market are well in excess of risk‐related costs. A number of facts about the subprime mortgage market support the second hypothesis. Existing research includes price information, papers inferring a correlation between high prices and high risk of credit loss from observed default rates, theoretical discussions to explain pricing dispersion, and studies trying to determine whether laws that indirectly restrict prices have reduced the supply of mortgage credit. Information asymmetries, seller obfus‐cation, and search costs contribute to the inefficiencies in this market and suggest several policy responses.

STATE ANTIPREDATORY LENDING LAWS AND NEIGHBORHOOD FORECLOSURE RATES

ABSTRACT: In this study, we examine the impact of state antipredatory lending laws (APLs) on neighborhood foreclosure and delinquency rates using a set of panel data regression models. We find strong evidence that neighborhoods have lower default rates in states with laws that extended federal coverage and/or restricted more mortgage contract terms, in states with broader coverage of subprime loans with high points and fees, and in states with more restrictive regulations on prepayment penalties. A typical APL lowers neighborhood default rates by between 3.8% and 18%, depending on the default risk measure considered. The findings remain consistent when we restrict the analysis to cross-border neighborhoods, suggesting that they are not due solely to unobservable market variation.

Losing the Paper – Mortgage Assignments, Note Transfers and Consumer Protection

In this article, I survey the state of the mortgage loan transfer system, the legal rules that govern it, and the widening gap between those rules and the practices in the secondary mortgage market just prior to the 2008 crisis. The review includes some empirical assessment of the extent of errors and execution problems; the damage done by “robo-signing;” the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) and note delivery practices; and the extent to which courts will prevent or reverse foreclosure sales based on those errors and problems. I then examine why existing legal structures, for both paper-based and electronic transfers, are not working, and the extent to which they have failed, I also identify the key consumer and investor protection values and interests (finality, transparency, fraud protection, and so forth) that must be addressed by the law governing secondary market transfers of home loans. I conclude by outlining options for reforming the mortgage loan transfer system, including the use of a single document merging the note and mortgage, and a structure for the registration of a single authoritative electronic version of the mortgage/note and of all changes in parties to, and terms of, the transaction.