Robert Van Order

Mortgage Terminations, Heterogeneity and the Exercise of Mortgage Options

As applied to the behavior of homeowners with mortgages, option theory predicts that mortgage prepayment or default will be exercised if the call or put option in in the money by some specific amount. Our analysis: tests the extent to which the option approach can explain default and prepayment behavior; evaluates the practical importance of modeling both options simultaneously; and models the unobserved herterogeneity of borrowers in the home mortgage market. The paper presents a unified model of the competing risks of mortgage termination by prepayment and default, considering the two hazards as dependent competing risks which are estimated jointly. It also accounts for the unobserved heterogeneity among borrowers, and estimates the unobserved heterogeneity simultaneously with the parameters and baseline hazards associated with prepayment and default functions. Our results show that the option model, in its most straightforward version, does a good job of explaining default and prepayment; but it is not enough by itself. The simultaneity of the options is very important empirically in explaining behavior. The results also show that there exists significant heterogeneity among mortgage borrowers. Ignoring this heterogeneity results in serious errors in estimating the prepayment behavior of homeowners.

FHA Terminations: A Prelude to Rational Mortgage Pricing

Recent models of pricing mortgages and/or mortgage insurance have used option-pricing models as their framework. The focus is usually on default, which is viewed as a put option (to sell the house to the lender in exchange for the mortgage) and prepayment, which is viewed as a call option (to buy the mortgage from the lender). Analysis then uses techniques like those used to price options in capital markets. Unfortunately, homeowners do not seem to exercise their option as quickly as do traders in organized markets. We estimate prepayment and default functions, which are meant to be a first step in developing modified, option-based models of mortgage pricing. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Explicit tests of contingent claims models of mortgage default

This paper provides explicit and powerful tests of contingent claims approaches to modeling mortgage default. We investigate a model of “frictionless” default (i.e., one in which transactions costs, reputation costs, and moving costs play no role) and analyze its implications-the relationship between equity and default, the timing of default, its dependence upon initial conditions, and the severity of losses. Absent transactions costs and other market imperfections, economic theory makes well-defined predictions about these various outcomes.The empirical analysis is based upon two particularly rich bodies of micro data: one indicating the default and loss experience of all mortgages purchased by the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and a large sample of all repeat sales of single family houses whose mortgages were purchased by Freddie Mac since 1976.

Mortgage default and low downpayment loans: The costs of public subsidy

Abstract This paper presents a unified model of the default and prepayment behavior of homeowners in a proportional hazard framework. The model uses the option-based approach to analyze default and prepayment, and considers these two interdependent hazards as competing risks. The results indicate the sensitivity of default to the initial loan-to-value ratio of the loan and the course of housing equity. The latter is a measure of the extent to which the default option is in the money. The results also indicate the importance of trigger events, namely unemployment and divorce, in affecting prepayment and default behavior. The empirical results are used to analyze the costs of a current policy proposal-stimulating homeownership by offering low downpayment loans. We simulate default probabilities and costs on zero-downpayment loans and compare them with conventional loans with conventional underwriting standards. The results indicate that if zero-downpayment loans were priced as if they were mortgages with 10% downpayments, then the additional program costs would be 2–4% of funds made available-when housing prices increase steadily. If housing prices remained constant, the costs of the program would be much larger indeed. Our estimates suggest that additional program costs could be between

Loan Loss Severity and Optimal Mortgage Default

74,000 and

Defaults on mortgage obligations and capital requirements for U.S. savings institutions: A policy perspective

87,000 per million dollars of lending. If the expected losses from such a program were not priced at all, the losses from default alone could exceed 10% of the funds made available for loans.

Income, Location and Default: Some Implications for Community Lending

This paper tests the contingent claims model of mortgage default in its ruthless or frictionless form. The principal tests of the model are based on an unconventional source of data, namely, loan loss severities on defaulted mortgages. The frictionless model has well-defined predictions about loss severities which we test in detail. The data analyzed include a random sample of all mortgages originated during the period 1975-90 and purchased by Freddie Mac, as well as the loss severities on all mortgages purchased by Freddie Mac which defaulted during the period. The frictionless model does not do well in these tests. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Integration of mortgage and capital markets and the accumulation of residential capital

Abstract This paper analyzes credit risk for residential mortgages. Estimates of the hazard of mortgage default are presented, based upon a large sample of conventional loans issued in the late 1970s. Mean returns are estimated, together with variances and covariances for various loan-to-value (LTV) ratios and geographic groups. These results are then used to analyze capital requirements for institutions holding mortgages. We ask: For a given bankruptcy risk, how should capital requirements vary by LTV and geographical diversification? The empirical results indicate that both factors have powerful effects upon bankruptcy risk; thus capital requirements should vary substantially along these dimensions.

Valuing the implicit guarantee of the Federal National Mortgage Association

This paper investigates differences in default losses across income groups and neighborhoods, in an effort to see if there are significant differences between default experience on loans to low-income households or low-income neighborhoods and other loans. We find that while defaults and losses are somewhat higher in low-income neighborhoods, default behavior is similar in the sense that responses to negative equity are similar across neighborhoods, and remaining differences are small and might be explained by omitted variables such as those measuring credit history. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

A Regime Shift Model of the Recent Housing Bubble in the United States

The securitization of fixed-rate mortgages suggests that the FRA/VA market was fully integrated with capital markets by the early l98Os and that the conventional market moved toward integration during the l98Os. Assuming full integration of FHA/VA5 via the GNMA securitization process, we first estimate equations explaining near-par GNMA prices weekly for the 1981-88 period. The price is then set equal to the new-issue price and, based upon the preferred equation, the perfect-market retail coupon rate is computed. Next we estimate equations (for three year segments of the 1971-88 period) explaining conventional commitment mortgage coupon rates in terms of current and lagged values of this perfect-market coupon rate. Finally, we examine differences between the perfect-market and actual coupon rates and compute the impact of these differences on residential capital accumulation.