Mortgage Market Reform and the Fallacy of Self-­Correcting Markets

Abstract

The article discusses the mortgage market collapse and reform effort from the persepctive of the underlying real estate transaction. It suggests a series of regulatory and transactional reforms to consider for improving the soundness of the underlying real estate transaction and the operation of the primary mortgage markets. These reforms include: taking steps to reduce speculation in housing prices; eliminating incentives for over borrowing and over lending; and, adjusting the structure of the underlying real estate transaction to undermine an inverse prisoner’s dilemma problem. It also also suggest that lawyers can add value to the underlying transaction but there is a need to make lawyer participation financially viable. The full article, new to SSRN, is attached and available for downloading.

Keywords: Mortgage, financial crisis, sub prime, secondary mortgage market, real estate transactions

JEL Classification: G2, G21, K, K11, K2, L1