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Journal Article
Peas in a pod? Comparing the U.S. and Danish mortgage finance systems
Like the United States, Denmark relies heavily on capital markets for funding residential mortgages, and its covered bond market bears a number of similarities to U.S. agency securitization. This article describes the key features of the Danish mortgage finance system and compares and contrasts them with those of the U.S. system. In addition, it highlights characteristics of the Danish model that may be of interest as the United States considers further mortgage finance reform. In particular, the Danish system includes features that mitigate refinancing frictions during periods of falling ...
Journal Article
The Role of bank credit enhancements in securitization
This article looks at enhancements provided by banks in the securitization market. We start with a set of new facts on the evolution of enhancement volume provided by U.S. bank holding companies (BHCs). We highlight the importance of bank-provided enhancements in the securitization market by comparing their market share with that of financial guaranties sold by insurance companies, one of the main sellers of credit protection in the securitization market. Contrary to the notion that banks were being eclipsed by other institutions in the shadow banking system, we find that banks have held ...
Working Paper
Securitization and mortgage default
We find that private-securitized loans perform worse than observably similar, nonsecuritized loans, which provides evidence for adverse selection. The effect of securitization is strongest for prime mortgages, which have not been studied widely in the previous literature and particular prime adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs): These become delinquent at a 30 percent higher rate when privately securitized. By contrast, our baseline estimates for subprime mortgages show that private-securitized loans default at lower rates. We show, however, that ?early defaulting loans? account for this: those ...
Report
Peas in a pod? Comparing the U.S. and Danish mortgage finance systems
Like the United States, Denmark relies heavily on capital markets for funding residential mortgages, and the Danish covered bond market bears a number of similarities to U.S. agency securitization. In this paper we describe the key features of the Danish mortgage finance system and compare and contrast it to the U.S. system. We also note characteristics of the Danish model that may be of interest as the United States considers further mortgage finance reform. In particular, the Danish system includes features that mitigate refinancing frictions during periods of falling home prices, and ...
Discussion Paper
The Role of Bank Credit Enhancements in Securitization
As Nicola Cetorelli observes in his introductory post, securitization is a key element of the evolution from banking to shadow banking. Recognizing that raises the central question in this series: Does the rise of securitization (and shadow banking) signal the decline of traditional banking? Not necessarily, because banks can play a variety of background (or foreground) roles in the securitization process. In our published contribution to the series, we look at the role of banks in providing credit enhancements. Credit enhancements are protection in the form of financial support against ...
Working Paper
The Mortgage Rate Conundrum
We document the emergence of a disconnect between mortgage and Treasury interest rates in the summer of 2003. Following the end of the Federal Reserve expansionary cycle in June 2003, mortgage rates failed to rise according to their historical relationship with Treasury yields, leading to significantly and persistently easier mortgage credit conditions. We uncover this phenomenon by analyzing a large dataset with millions of loan-level observations, which allows us to control for the impact of varying loan, borrower and geographic characteristics. These detailed data also reveal that ...
Journal Article
Credit risk transfer, informed markets, and securitization
Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) funded the U.S. housing bubble, while the ensuing bust resulted in systemic risk and the global financial crisis of 2007-09. In the run-up to the crisis, MBS pricing failed to reveal the growing credit risk. This article draws lessons from this failure that could inform the use of credit risk transfers (CRTs) to price credit risk. The author concludes that the CRT market, as currently constituted, could have appropriately priced and revealed credit risk during the bubble years because it met three key requirements: 1) transparency, through the full provision ...
Working Paper
Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent Investors in the Single-Family Housing Market: The Emergence of a New Asset Class?
In 2012, several large firms began purchasing single-family homes with the stated intention of creating large portfolios of rental property. We present the first systematic evidence on how this new investor activity differs from that of other investors in the housing market. Many aspects of buy-to-rent investor behavior are consistent with holding property for rent rather than reselling quickly. Additionally, the large size of these investors imparts a few important advantages. In the short run, this investment activity appears to have supported house prices in the areas where it is ...
Report
Credit risk transfer and de facto GSE reform
We summarize and evaluate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?s credit risk transfer (CRT) programs, which have been used since 2013 to shift a portion of credit risk on more than $1.8 trillion of mortgages to private sector investors. We argue that the CRT programs have been successful in reducing the exposure of the federal government to mortgage credit risk without disrupting the liquidity or stability of mortgage secondary markets. In the process, the programs have created a new financial market for pricing and trading mortgage credit risk, which has grown in size and liquidity over time. The CRT ...
Report
Securitization and the fixed-rate mortgage
Fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) dominate the U.S. mortgage market, with important consequences for monetary policy, household risk management, and financial stability. In this paper, we show that the share of FRMs is sharply lower when mortgages are difficult to securitize. Our analysis exploits plausibly exogenous variation in access to liquid securitization markets generated by a regulatory cutoff and time variation in private securitization activity. We interpret our findings as evidence that lenders are reluctant to retain the prepayment and interest rate risk embedded in FRMs. The form of ...