Objective measures as a predictor of late payments by high‐risk borrowers

Manufactured homes (also known outside the US as prefabricated homes) are a viable housing option for low‐income buyers, but traditional mortgages are not available for purchase of manufactured homes because of a perception of higher risk of default among purchasers of manufactured homes. Research suggests that creditscoring models which incorporate objective data such as income, debt‐to‐income ratio and credit history result in an accurate and objective predictive tool to estimate likelihood of late payments and default among traditional home buyers. This study showed that these same models can be applied similarly to purchasers of manufactured homes. A Tobit model was developed to evaluate which factors most accurately predict default and late payment behaviour among borrowers who purchased a manufactured home. The model showed that when decomposed into the probability of making a late payment and number of late payments, credit score and income are both significant predictors in both sets of borrowers of both the probability of making a late payment and the number of late payments. The higher the credit score, the less likely the borrower is to make a late payment.