Termination of distressed residential mortgages: An empirical analysis

A sample of 209 distressed mortgages is used to analyze the terminations of distressed mortgages. An option-based model is compared to a traditional default model. Results show that the traditional model is statistically superior. However, the model's ability to identify a default is similar to that of the simpler option-based model. Alternative measures of borrower's equity are compared. Measuring borrower's equity using total debt more accurately explains default than using either the mortgage balance or the mortgage value.     

A MULTIFACTOR MODEL OF THE QUALITY OPTION IN TREASURY FUTURES CONTRACTS

The values of quality options in Treasury futures contracts are set relative to the prices of all coupon bonds in their respective deliverable sets. As a result, any model used to value the quality option should set its price relative to the set of observed bond prices. This requirement rules out the use of most simple equilibrium models that represent all bond prices in terms of a finite number of state variables. We use the two-factor Heath-Jarrow-Morton model, which permits claims to be priced relative to observable bond prices, to investigate the potential value of the quality option in Treasury bond and note futures. We show that the quality option has significantly more value in a two-factor interest rate economy than in a single-factor economy, and that ignoring it could lead to significant mispricing.     

Current Wealth,Housing Purchase,and Private Housing Loan Demand in Japan

Japanese households accumulate wealth for down payments at a high rate. Therefore, current wealth plays an important role in home acquisition as well as public loans whose direct mortgage lending is a strong support for home purchasers. We estimate the wealth effect on private mortgage debt as well as housing consumption by applying a model where mortgage-debt demand is derived from house-purchase decisions and is determined jointly with housing consumption. We use a simultaneous equation Tobit estimation method. Wealth effects on private mortgage debt, likelihood of borrowing, and housing consumption are not elastic. On the other hand, a change in housing consumption affects the likelihood of borrowing elastically much more than the private mortgage amount of borrowers. Housing and private mortgage markets fluctuate very closely with the number of participants in the mortgage market. Therefore, the number of housing starts is linked strongly to the private mortgage market.     

The Duration of an Adjustable-Rate Mortgage and the Impact of the Index

With the increasing use of adjustable-rate mortgages for asset/liability management, there exists the need to properly evaluate their price sensitivity to interest rate changes. This paper provides a foundation by deriving the duration of an adjustable-rate mortgage. The properties of this duration are unique and have some important differences from those of fixed-rate securities. One important characteristic of an adjustable-rate mortgage concerns the index used to adjust the mortgage rate. It was found that the index tended to be more important than the adjustment frequency in determining the duration of an adjustable-rate mortgage.     

Estimation for factor models of term structure of interest rates with jumps: the case of the Taiwanese government bond market

This paper examines the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (O–U) process used by Vasicek, J. Financial Econ. 5 (1977) 177, and a jump-diffusion process used by Baz and Das, J. Fixed Income (Jnue, 1996) 78, for the Taiwanese Government Bond (TGB) term structure of interest rates. We first obtain the TGB term structures by applying the B-spline approximation, and then use the estimated interest rates to estimate parameters for the one-factor and two-factor Vasicek and jump-diffusion models. The results show that both the one-factor and two-factor Vasicek and jump-diffusion models are statistically significant, with the two-factor models fitting better. For two-factor models, compared with the second factor, the first factor exhibits characteristics of stronger mean reversion, higher volatility, and more frequent and significant jumps in the case of the jump-diffusion process. This is because the first factor is more associated with short-term interest rates, and the second factor is associated with both short-term and long-term interest rates. The jump-diffusion model, which can incorporate jump risks, provides more insight in explaining the term structure as well as the pricing of interest rate derivatives.     

Pricing Effects of the Decision to Sell or Hold Adjustable Rate Mortgage Loans in a Portfolio

Residential mortgage originators can transfer loans to ultimate lenders quickly and efficiently using the secondary mortgage market. Some adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) lenders use this outlet consistently while others hold whole loans in their portfolios on a long-term basis. Selling and holding lenders should respond to different economic factors when setting yields on ARM loans originated because their long-term positions in the loans are so diverse. This paper develops and tests a model of differential pricing behavior for selling and holding strategies. Empirical results support the notion that lenders use different factors to price loans and that these factors are related to the risks faced by the originating lender given its origination strategy. Additional findings suggest that institutional and firm-specific pricing tendencies exist in the primary mortgage market for adjustable rate debt.     

住房抵押贷款提前还贷风险管理研究

从现代金融和风险管理角度看,住房抵押贷款提前还贷对商业银行是一种期权性风险,对其收取违约金并非国际惯例,也并不是有效的风险补偿方式。商业银行应适应市场竞争需要,接受风险转嫁并提供风险管理服务,运用风险定价技术在按揭交易价格中对提前还贷风险进行补偿。对于已承担的风险,商业银行应构建抵押贷款提前还贷的数据库,通过表内对冲和市场对冲,推出多样化的住房抵押贷款方式,积极推进住房抵押贷款证券化,从而最终增强银行的盈利来源和核心竞争力。     

Rational prepayment and the valuation of mortgage-backed securities

This article presents a new model of mortgage prepayments, basedon rational decisions by mortgage holders. These mortgage holdersface heterogeneous transaction costs, which are explicitly modeled.The model is estimated using a version of Hansen's (1982) generalizedmethod of moments, and is shown to capture many of the empiricalfeatures of mortgage prepayment. Estimation results indicatethat mortgage holders act as though they face transaction coststhat far exceed the explicit costs usually incurred on refinancing.They also wait an average of more than a year before refinancing,even when it is optimal to do so. The model fits observed prepaymentbehavior as well as the recent empirical model of Schwartz andTorous (1989). Implications for pricing mortgage-backed securitiesare discussed.     

An Analysis of Mortgage Termination Risks: A Shared Frailty Approach with MSA-Level Random Effects

Investigating the residential mortgage defaults and prepayments has been the subject of research for the past three decades. The literature on mortgage default and prepayment is often used to inform credit risk policies and asset pricing strategies. This literature has evolved from the use of logistic regressions to the use of survival and frailty models that control for unobserved heterogeneity. In this paper, we apply a shared-frailty survival model to analyze the mortgage termination risks. In particular, we investigate whether mortgages originated in the same Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) share common unobserved factors and how these factors affect the mortgage termination risks. The paper demonstrates that MSA-level frailty, together with other risk factors, has significant effects on the probability of mortgage terminations risks.     

Bank and Nonbank Lenders and the Commercial Mortgage Market

This paper develops an equilibrium model of the commercial mortgage market that includes the sequence from commitment to origination and allows testing for differences by type of lender. From borrowers, loan demand is based on the income yield, capital gains, and expectations about return distributions. Lenders use prices such as mortgage rates and their distributions, and quantities in underwriting standards. There are separate equilibria in the markets for loan commitments and originations. Bank and nonbank lenders are not restricted to the same lending technology, nor to the weights placed on mortgage rates as opposed to underwriting standards. Empirical results for the United States commercial mortgage market indicate that banks use interest rates in allocating credit while nonbanks rely on underwriting standards, notably the loan-to-value ratio. A consequence is that nonbanks have a clientele incentive towards making low cap rate loans compensated by low loan-to-value ratios.     

The Economic Effects of Legal Restrictions on High-Cost Mortgages

We analyze the effects of state predatory mortgage lending laws, which have been a model for recent changes in the United States federal legislation enacted to regulate the mortgage contract terms common in higher-risk mortgage market segments. Using the Rothschild-Stiglitz approach to model credit markets under asymmetric information, legal restrictions are shown to reduce the use and attractiveness of mortgage credit. Consistent with model predictions, empirical results indicate that originations of regulated high-cost mortgages were significantly less than predicted in states with more restrictive laws. The differences between predicted and actual originations of high-cost mortgages in states with less restrictive laws were not significant. These differences were also not significant for non-high-cost originations across all states. Thus, credit regulation was differentially associated with reduction in originations of high-cost mortgages, and non-high-cost lending did not consistently expand in areas where high-cost mortgages were restricted.     

Choosing between fixed-and adjustable-rate mortgages: The case of commercial mortgages

This article reports on the determinants of the ARM choice for commercial real estate projects. The theoretical literature suggests that commercial real estate projects are more likely to be financed with an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) if the project's income stream or value is expected to rise with inflation over time. The empirical model estimated is a structural probit probability model of the ARM choice. Our results demonstrate that commercial borrowers typically place great emphasis on relative interest-rate differentials when deciding which mortgage is best. We also find that commercial mortgage borrowers will ordinarily be reluctant to issue an ARM when the fixed interest rate is low.     

Foreclosure of Securitized Commercial Mortgages—A Model of the Special Servicer

The decision to foreclose on a CMBS mortgage is made by the special servicer. A mortgage loan is in special servicing when it is either delinquent or in a state of imminent default. A special servicer should represent the interests of the underlying CMBS bondholders by returning the highest possible value to the investors. In this paper, we show that a special servicer’s compensation structure results in an incentive for her to extend a loan beyond the time desired by its bondholders. We develop a model and demonstrate how compensation incentives interact and influence a special servicer’s foreclosure decisions. Our model takes into consideration the dynamic nature of such a decision by viewing is as a dynamic programming problem whereby foreclosure represents a discrete terminal state of an optimal stopping problem. This model thus captures the trade-off between continuation of a loan and termination and we use this model to determine how the stopping rule changes under various compensation structures.     

The use of credit scoring in the mortgage industry

In times of increased focus on risk management, acquiring or growing comparatively low risk mortgage portfolios has become an attractive value proposition. Banks that pursue an aggressive growth strategy in this sector, do, however, require risk control mechanisms that enable them to make a clear judgment on how great a growth appetite they can afford to have in order to still grow profitably. Moreover, under Basel II, the proper quantification of mortgage portfolio risk tends to help the release of own capital, because the mortgage portfolio is one of those portfolios where the relative benefits of internal ratings-based approaches compared with the standardised approach are greatest. Credit scoring models in general, and credit scorecards in particular, are suitable methods for quantifying the risk of an individual mortgage applicant or mortgage customer. In addition to score card development, this paper reviews alternative scoring model types that could be used for mortgage scoring. It presents reasons why it is beneficial to build such models in-house, before focusing on the steps necessary for building a mortgage scorecard. Finally, it discusses the important topics of creating segments, deploying models and eventually monitoring models.     

A Proportional Hazards Model of Commercial Mortgage Default with Originator Bias

A proportional hazards model with competing risks is specified and is extended to correct for the possibility of originator bias. The model is used to examine the ability of option-theoretic models of mortgage pricing to forecast commercial mortgage defaults. Among the findings, those especially of interest include the influence of contemporaneous loan-to-value and debt-service-coverage ratios on commercial mortgage default probabilities. The paper also finds that option-theoretic models of mortgage pricing are quite capable of producing default estimates that fit the actual default rates well, especially when the model is corrected for originator bias.     

Frictions, Heterogeneity and Optimality in Mortgage Modeling

The purpose of this article is to provide a unified framework for incorporating frictions into a theoretical options-pricing model (OPM) for mortgages. This article presents formulation for a frictions-adjustable mortgage model that integrates borrower heterogeneity while simultaneously preserving prepayment and default financial decisions. Our model demonstrates the flexibility of the OPM by simulating separate and concurrent effects of three categories of frictions on the mortgage and mortgage components. Researchers can use our example formulation to determine the effects of specific borrower characteristics on mortgage values without destroying the options theoretic framework.     

丹麦按揭系统稳健运作的经验

丹麦房贷市场是世界第三大抵押债券市场，其独特的按揭系统有着200多年的历史，是世界上最古老的、运行最稳定的房屋抵押贷款系统之一。丹麦模式以高透明度、低信贷风险和低借贷成本而闻名于世，在历次金融危机中稳如磐石，对社会经济的稳定发展发挥了重要作用。文章介绍了丹麦按揭系统稳健运作的成功经验，以期为我国房地产市场的长期稳定发展提供借鉴。     

Optimal leverage strategy: Capital structure in real estate investments

This article examines the optimal leverage strategy for real estate investors who are investing in income-producing properties. Within a discounted cash-flow context, the investment objective for the equity investor is to maximize the contribution to net present value of using mortgage financing. Utilizing more debt decreases the required equity investment and increases the size of the tax shelter. On the other hand, as the loan-to-value ratio increases, the interest rate charged by the lender increases, which indicates a higher cost of debt. This article goes beyond the simple conventional wisdom that debt financing should be used when financial leverage is positive by developing an equation that allows one to determine the optimal level of debt financing to use when positive leverage is possible. The optimal loan-to-value ratio is found to be a function of the investor's characteristics. Several hypotheses about the relationships between such an optimal loan-to-value ratio and the investor's characteristics are derived.     

The closing rate on residential mortgage commitments: An econometric analysis

Mortgage lenders routinely guarantee rates and points for periods of 60 days or more and hedge the inherent interest rate risk by selling the proportion of mortgages expected to close in forward markets. This article presents a model of the decision to close on the mortgage and demonstrates that the estimates of the model increase the precision of closing rate forecasts. The analysis indicates that changes in mortgage rates are important determinants of the closing rate for fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) and adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM). Other important factors include whether the mortgage is for a new purchase, for owner occupancy, and for a single-family house, and what the overall level of mortgage rates and the loan-to-value ratio are and whether the rate guarantee was granted at the application date or later.     

A Test of Integration and Cointegration of Commercial Mortgage Rates

Little empirical work examines the extent to which commercial mortgage markets are integrated into broader capital markets. We use time series data on commercial mortgage yields and yields on comparable-maturity Treasury securities to identify a long-run cointegrating relationship between the two yield series. Our empirical evidence suggest that, while the yield on commercial mortgage is cointegrated with that on comparable-maturity Treasury securities, the cointegrating relationship is far less than that found between the yield on residential mortgage rates and that on comparable-maturity Treasury securities during 1980–1990 time period. However, our results also show that the spate of commercial mortgage securitization that began in early 1991 may have been a market-integrating force and caused the commercial mortgage market to become more integrated into broader capital markets. Indeed, our results suggest that changes in capital market rates are now much more rapidly reflected in commercial mortgage rates than in the 1980–1990 time period, although there is a lag.