This article compares default patterns among prime and subprime mortgages, analyzes the factors correlated with default, and examines how forecasts of defaults are affected by alternative assumptions about trends in home prices. The authors find that extremely pessimistic forecasts of home price appreciation could have generated predictions of subprime defaults that were closer to the actual default experience for loans originated in 2006 and 2007. However, for prime loans one would have also had to anticipate that defaults would become much more sensitive to home prices. Tables and graphs.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Explores the question of whether market participants could have or should have anticipated the large increase in foreclosures that occurred in 2007 and 2008. Most of these foreclosures stemmed from loans originated in 2005 and 2006, leading many to suspect that lenders originated a large volume of extremely risky loans during this period. While loans originated in this period did carry extra risk factors, underwriting standards alone cannot explain the dramatic rise in foreclosures. Market participants should have understood that a significant fall in prices would cause a large increase in foreclosures. Analysts understood that a fall in prices would have disastrous consequences for the market but assigned a low probability to such an outcome. Charts and tables.

Subprime mortgage lending expanded in New York City between 2004 and mid-2007, and delinquencies on these subprime loans have been rising sharply. The authors describe the main features of this lending and model the performance of these loans. These subprime loans are found to be clustered in neighborhoods where average borrower credit quality is low and, unlike prime mortgage loans, where African-Americans and Hispanics constitute relatively large shares of the population. The authors estimate a model of the likelihood that these loans will become seriously delinquent and find a significant role for credit quality of borrowers, debt-to-income and loan-to-value ratios at the time of loan origination, and estimates of the loss of home equity. Illus.

Presents the ideas & opinions of many subprime mortgage market participants observers on subprime borrowers, their default experience, & subprime lenders' underwriting practices. Representatives of lenders, trade associations, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, rating agencies & other market experts talked with the authors about the complex issues related to a larger GSE role in the subprime market. Chapters: what is subprime lending & who does it serve?; a brief history of subprime lending; underwriting & pricing practices; the GSEs & subprime lending: current & future roles; automated underwriting & risk-based pricing; automated underwriting systems in today's lending environment; & policy issues & recommendations.

A comprehensive resource providing extensive coverage of the state of the art in credit secruritisations, derivatives, and risk management Credit Securitisations and Derivatives is a one-stop resource presenting the very latest thinking and developments in the field of credit risk. Written by leading thinkers from academia, the industry, and the regulatory environment, the book tackles areas such as business cycles; correlation modelling and interactions between financial markets, institutions, and instruments in relation to securitisations and credit derivatives; credit portfolio risk; credit portfolio risk tranching; credit ratings for securitisations; counterparty credit risk and clearing of derivatives contracts and liquidity risk. As well as a thorough analysis of the existing models used in the industry, the book will also draw on real life cases to illustrate model performance under different parameters and the impact that using the wrong risk measures can have.

Investigates whether a particular aspect of borrowers' financial literacy ¿ their numerical ability ¿ may have played a role in the subprime mortgage collapse. The authors measure several aspects of financial literacy and cognitive ability in a survey of subprime mortgage borrowers who took out mortgages in 2006 or 2007 and match these measures to objective data on mortgage characteristics and repayment performance. The result: a large and statistically significant negative correlation between numerical ability and various measures of delinquency and default. Foreclosure starts are approximately 2/3 lower in the group with the highest measured level of numerical ability compared with the group with the lowest measured level. Illus.