Mortgage Loss Severities: What Keeps Them so High?

50 Pages Posted: 28 Sep 2020

See all articles by Xudong An

Xudong An

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Larry Cordell

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: September, 2020

Abstract

Mortgage loss-given-default (LGD) increased significantly when house prices plummeted during the financial crisis, but it has remained over 40 percent in recent years, despite a strong housing recovery. Our results indicate that the sustained high LGDs post-crisis is due to a combination of an overhang of crisis-era foreclosures and prolonged liquidation timelines, which have offset higher sales recoveries. Simulations show that cutting foreclosure timelines by one year would cause LGD to decrease by 5 to 8 percentage points, depending on the tradeoff between lower liquidation expenses and lower sales recoveries. Using difference-in-differences tests, we also find that recent consumer protection programs have extended foreclosure timelines and increased loss severities despite their potential benefits of increasing loan modifications and enhancing consumer protections.

Keywords: loss-given default (LGD), foreclosure timelines, regulatory changes, Heckman two-stage model, accelerated failure time model

JEL Classification: G21, G18, C41, C24, G01

Suggested Citation

An, Xudong and Cordell, Larry, Mortgage Loss Severities: What Keeps Them so High? (September, 2020). FRB of Philadelphia Working Paper No. 20-37, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3699649 or http://dx.doi.org/10.21799/frbp.wp.2020.37

Xudong An (Contact Author)

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia ( email )

Ten Independence Mall
Philadelphia, PA 19106-1574
United States

Larry Cordell

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia ( email )

Ten Independence Mall
Philadelphia, PA 19106-1574
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
26
Abstract Views
263
PlumX Metrics