Price Expectations,Distressed Mortgage Markets and the Housing Wealth Effect

Using a unique combination of regulatory and survey microdata, we examine the importance of the life cycle theory of consumption in estimating housing wealth effects for the Irish mortgage market. Since the recent financial crisis, this market has experienced substantial house price declines and negative equity. Thus, house price expectations are likely to be important in influencing housing wealth effects. We find a positive correlation between consumption and changes in housing wealth among our sample of mortgaged Irish households. Furthermore, we find that this positive association only exists when housing wealth changes are perceived to be of a permanent nature.     

Risk and Return to Housing, Tenure Choice and the Value of Housing in an Asset Pricing Context

Homeowners do not diversify their risky home equity because of fixed costs of issuing securities and information costs. An asset pricing model is developed for homeowners with the undiversifiable home equity asset. Homeowner value and house value to diversified landlords are compared, and a tenure choice equation is developed. We demonstrate the existence of a rational expectations equilibrium under appropriate conditions.     

REIT Capital Budgeting and Equity Marginal q

Equity marginal  q  is the change in the market value of a company's equity in response to a one-unit unexpected change in its asset base. Hence, it is a profitability index that evaluates a firm's capital budgeting decisions at the margin. We estimate the equity marginal  q  for real estate–managing public corporations, namely, real estate investment trusts (REITs), in an attempt to understand how the various costs and benefits of being a public corporation play a role in managing this important asset class. Using the universe of equity REITs for the period from 1993 to 2005, we find that REITs with greater idiosyncratic volatility, higher stock turnover and smaller bid-ask spread have a higher equity marginal  q . In addition, both the holdings of institutional investors and their investment horizons are respectively positively related to equity marginal  q.  With these firm characteristics taken into account, firm size is found to be negatively related to equity marginal  q . Our findings are economically important as well, because the equity marginal  q  ratio alone accounts for approximately one-third of the total REIT shareholder wealth change during the study period.     

Institutional Investment,Asset Illiquidity and Post‐Crash Housing Market Dynamics

We examine institutional investors’ entry into the equity side of the single‐family detached housing market using an asset illiquidity framework. We find that institutional investors purchased owner‐occupied houses after the real estate crisis for approximately 6.3–11.8% less than owner‐occupiers. The large discount was in addition to distressed sale and cash purchase discounts which, when combined, highlight the low liquidation value for owner‐occupied housing. The results suggest that asset illiquidity is an important cost of leverage in the owner‐occupied housing market.     

居民家庭金融资产组合集成风险的测量与波动分析

居民家庭金融资产在不同时期风险的聚集可能会引发宏观金融风险, 甚至导致金融危机。 因此, 文章试图测算家庭金融资产组合风险并描述其变动特点。 首先构建家庭金融资产组合的 Copula 函数, 然后计算其VaR 值, 并比较分析 VaR 值与各金融资产收益的变动关系 , 发现当金融资产中高风险资产的收益低于 VaR 值下限时, 家庭金融资产风险不断积聚并达到高点, 而这个过程与金融危机发生的时间相契合。 家庭金融资产组合风险和资产中的风险资产收益会影响未来的利率和 CPI 的变化。     

Real Assets,Liquidation Value and Choice of Financing

We use real estate firms to examine how asset liquidation values influence a firm's financing choice, because the productivity and quality of each asset is observable and potential measures of an asset's liquidation value are easier to ascertain ex ante. We show that compared to firms that issue equity, firms that issue debt have higher asset quality. The effect of their expected asset liquidation value is significant, even after we control for other factors that influence financing decisions. For firms whose assets' quality is not easily observable, we find that firms' financing choices depend heavily on conditions in the overall real estate market.     

房地产市场广义虚拟财富效应测度研究

中国居民的财富特征与发达国家居民的财富特征明显不同,这是由于我国房地产市场发展程度、金融市场自由化程度、住房自有率的高低、房地产市场的投机程度以及人们对待房地产财富的观念等方面的差异所导致。本文基于广义虚拟经济的视角,利用我国30个大中城市1998—2009年的季度数据,建立房地产财富效应测度模型,对广义虚拟经济条件下房地产财富效应进行了实证检验。计算结果表明:我国30个大中城市的广义虚拟房地产财富效应表现形式存在明显个体差异,大部分城市的房地产财富效应为负,30个城市的总体房地产财富效应也为负,且系数较小不显著。这表明我国近年来房价持续上涨对居民消费产生了一定的挤出效果和抑制作用,但从全国总体来看这种挤出和抑制作用并不明显。     

Who benefits the most? Risk pooling in mortgage loan insurance: Evidence from the Canadian mortgage market

This article evaluates the effect of mortgage loan insurance (MLI), an essential macroprudential tool available to policy makers, on housing affordability, household leverage, and the overall welfare of the economy. A dynamic model of the housing market with heterogeneous households and competitive housing and mortgage markets is constructed and is calibrated to Canadian data. We find that relaxing the mandatory nature of MLI required for mortgages with a loan-to-value ratio of 80% or more, in favor of a counterfactual system where MLI reflects credit risks, dampens demand for housing to purchase and puts downward pressure on house prices. Some of the households with low income and low asset holdings can no longer afford a house; therefore, the aggregate homeownership rate drops. In contrast, demand for rental units increases and rents go up.     

Subprime Refinancing: Equity Extraction and Mortgage Termination

This article examines the choice of borrowers to extract wealth from housing in the high-cost (subprime) segment of the mortgage market and assesses the prepayment and default performance of these cash-out refinance loans relative to the rate of refinance loans. Consistent with survey evidence, the propensity to extract equity is sensitive to the relative interest rates of other forms of consumer debt. After the loan is originated, our results indicate that cash-out refinances perform differently from non–cash-out refinances. For example, cash-outs are less likely to default or prepay, and the termination of cash-outs is more sensitive to changing interest rates and house prices.     

An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model with Owner‐Occupied Housing

This article studies portfolio choice and asset pricing in the presence of owner‐occupied housing in a continuous time framework. The unique feature of the model is that housing is a consumption good as well as a risky asset. Under general conditions, that is, when the utility function is not Cobb–Douglas and the covariance matrix is not block‐diagonal, the model shows that the market portfolio is not mean‐variance efficient, and the traditional capital asset pricing model fails. Nonetheless, a conditional linear factor pricing model holds with housing return and market portfolio return as two risk factors. The model also predicts that the nondurable consumption‐to‐housing ratio (ch) can forecast financial asset returns. The two factor pricing model conditioning on ch yields a good cross‐sectional fit for Fama–French 25 portfolios.     

A Simple Model of Mortgage Insurance

This paper uses a two-period model to analyze the borrower's choice of an optimal time pattern of mortgage payments in a world where future house values are uncertain. Since a decline in values can make the borrower's equity negative, leading to default on the mortgage, lenders in the model will require the purchase of mortgage insurance. The premium on the insurance policy will depend on the riskiness of the mortgage, which in turn depends on the magnitude of the initial mortgage payment. Mortgages with large (small) first payments will carry low (high) insurance premiums. Taking this fact into account, the borrower decides on the optimal riskiness of his mortgage. Borrowers who discount the future heavily choose risky mortgages carrying high insurance premiums, while those who place a higher value on future consumption opt for less risky contracts carrying low (or zero) premiums.     

Financial Flexibility and Investment: Evidence from REIT At‐the‐Market (ATM) Equity Offerings

This article examines changes in real estate investment around the establishment of at‐the‐market (ATM) equity programs by equity REITs. We document a significant increase in the rate of investment following an ATM program announcement and its subsequent use. However, we find that ATM access has a differential impact on the investment activity of REITs facing more significant financial constraints. We also provide further evidence that REITs with ATM programs generate positive long‐run returns in excess of that of similarly timed SEOs.     

REIT and Commercial Real Estate Returns: A Postmortem of the Financial Crisis

In the years surrounding the financial crisis, the share prices of equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) were much more volatile than the underlying commercial real estate prices. To better understand this phenomenon we examine the cross‐sectional dispersion of REIT returns during this time period with a particular focus on the influence of their capital structures. By looking at both the debt ratio and the maturity structure of the debt, we separate the pure leverage effect from the effect of financial distress. Consistent with leverage and financial distress costs amplifying the price decline, we find that the share prices of REITs with higher debt‐to‐asset ratios and shorter maturity debt fell more during the 2007 to early‐2009 crisis period. Although REIT prices rebounded with the bounce back in commercial real estate prices, financial distress costs had a permanent effect on REIT values. In particular, we find that REITs with more debt due during the crisis period tended to sell more property and issue more equity in 2009, when prices were depressed.     

Cash to spend: IPO wealth and house prices

This study demonstrates the impact of initial public offerings (IPOs) on local house prices. Applying spatial difference-in-differences methods to IPOs in California from 1993 to 2017, we find house prices increase by 0.7%–0.9% near an IPO firm's headquarters around filing and issuing dates. Upon lockup expiration, price changes depend on postissuance returns. Treating the San Francisco Bay as a commuting barrier, we identify sustained price increases after filings and temporary increases after issuing and lockup expiration. We also confirm post-IPO price divergence between the treatment and synthetic control areas. Our findings indicate the effect of liquid wealth under mild financial constraints.     

Equity and Nonequity Determinants of FHA Single-Family Mortgage Foreclosures in the 1980s

We examine foreclosures on FHA single-family mortgages insured during the 1975–87 period. The importance of the market value of borrower equity and national house price dispersion support much earlier work emphasizing the key role of negative equity in triggering default. The lower is "mean" market-value equity, and the greater is dispersion, the greater is the fraction of borrowers likely to have negative equity. The unemployment rate and the book value of borrower equity are also shown to be significant determinants of default. Unemployment is one of those events that can force borrowers to move. The moving decision increases the likelihood of default because moving costs no longer deter default, and the costs of selling the house reduce the effective equity in the house. The book value of equity is relevant to this decision because it is what the sellers receive if they move without defaulting. Not only are both of these variables significant determinants of default, but the smaller is book equity, the greater is employment impact (with large book equity, unemployment should not matter because selling the house is preferred to default).     

REIT Stock Price Volatility and the Effects of Leverage

This article sheds light on several puzzling empirical observations. We examine the volatility implications of equity Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) stock returns over the sample period from January 1985 through October 2012. We find a negative “leverage effect” in the pre‐ and post‐Greenspan era, but not during the Greenspan era (circa 1994–2006). We argue that the positive elasticity of variance with respect to the value of equity during the Greenspan era can be explained by a decline in the spread between the yield on commercial mortgages and 10‐year Treasuries, which triggered a wealth transfer from REIT equity holders to REIT debt holders. We also argue that the declining commercial‐mortgage‐10‐year‐Treasury yield spread during the Greenspan era allowed REITs to take on far more risk than most people realized. We then document that average REIT stock return volatility increased significantly in the 2007–2010 period in the midst of a historic decline in REIT stock prices. The results have significant implications for the good deal of interest and debate in the media over the status of REITs and whether equity REITs have become excessively risky relative to the returns they generate.     

金融可得性与互联网金融风险防范——基于网络传销案件的实证分析

网络传销作为一种非法互联网金融活动,引发了严重的互联网金融风险。本文利用手工整理的2009—2018年7334份传销刑事判决书,基于传销组织“金字塔”结构特点,以标准化后的被告人数衡量网络传销发案率,构建地级市层面网络传销发案率的面板数据,从投资者资产配置的角度研究地区金融可得性对网络传销参与的影响。实证结果表明:网络传销显著降低了当地社会的信任程度;金融可得性的提高能够有效抑制网络传销的发展,基于一系列稳健性检验和工具变量的分析仍然支持这一结果,这种抑制效果主要出现在东中部地区。在机制分析中,基于2015年存款利率市场化改革的双重差分分析表明,金融可得性通过加剧市场竞争优化了投资收益,降低了投资者参与网络传销的可能性。本文表明,发展普惠金融,扩大金融市场开放,促进金融市场有序竞争,对于从源头上治理和打击网络传销等非法互联网金融活动、防范互联网金融风险、保护中小投资者利益具有积极意义。     

An Analysis of REIT Security Issuance Decisions

This article tests the ability of traditional capital structure theories to explain the issuance decisions of real estate investment trusts (REITs). For issuances made between 1997 and 2006, we find strong support for the market timing theory of capital structure. Controlling for past returns and growth, a REIT is more likely to issue equity when its price-to–net asset value ratio is high. This suggests that REITs issue equity in public markets when the cost of equity capital is lower in the public market than in the private market. Consistent with traditional market timing, REITs are more likely to issue equity after experiencing large price increases. We also find some support for REITs following the trade-off theory of capital structure. REITs are less likely to issue debt when proxies for expected bankruptcy costs are high.     

Housing,Wealth, Income and Consumption: China and Homeownership Heterogeneity

Impacts on consumer spending in urban China associated with housing value, housing equity, financial assets and household income are evaluated using longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) survey. Findings suggest that the housing wealth effect on household consumption in China is much larger than has been shown for developed economies. The larger impact is prospectively related to structural limits on investing which favor real estate ownership, along with the dominant position of housing in total household wealth. We also find that a household's consumption varies across housing tenure. Homeowners having joint ownership of property on average have the highest consumption propensity, while those having sole ownership of property consume the most in response to appreciation in housing wealth.     

Evidence and Implications of Regime Shifts: Time‐Varying Effects of the United States and Japanese Economies on House Prices in Hawaii

We show that local house prices may be driven almost entirely by the demands of one identifiable group for several years and then by demands of another group at other times. We present evidence that house prices in Hawaii were subject to such regime shifts. Prices responded to demands associated with U.S. incomes and wealth for most years from 1975 through 2008. For about a decade starting in the middle of the 1980s, after the Japanese yen appreciated dramatically and Japanese housing and stock market wealth soared, however, house prices in Hawaii responded to Japanese incomes and wealth. Estimated models with these regime shifts outperformed conventional, constant‐coefficient models. The regime‐shifting model helps explain why, when and by how much the volatility and the elasticities of house prices in Hawaii with respect to the incomes and wealth of the United States and Japan varied over time.