Tag Archives: benefit ratio

Risky Cash-Out Refis

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Anil Kumar of the Dallas Fed has posted Do Restrictions on Home Equity Extraction Contribute to Lower Mortgage Defaults? Evidence from a Policy Discontinuity at the Texas’ Border to SSRN.  The abstract reads

Given that excessive borrowing helped precipitate the housing crisis, a key component of a policy agenda to prevent future meltdowns is effective regulation to curb unaffordable mortgage debt. Texas is the only US state that limits home equity borrowing to 80 percent of home value. Anecdotal reports have long suggested that home equity restrictions shielded Texas homeowners from the worst of the subprime mortgage crisis. But there is, as yet, no formal empirical investigation of these restrictions’ role in curbing mortgage default. This paper is the first to empirically estimate the impact of Texas home equity restrictions on mortgage default using individual and loan level data from three different sources. The paper exploits the policy discontinuity around Texas’ interstate borders induced by the home equity restrictions to identify the causal effect of home equity extraction on mortgage default in a border discontinuity design framework. The paper finds that limits on home equity borrowing in Texas lowered the likelihood of mortgage default by about 2 percentage points with a significantly larger impact on mortgage borrowers in the bottom quartile of the credit score distribution. Estimated default hazards for mortgages within 50 to 100 miles of the Texas’ border decline sharply as one crosses into Texas. Overall, the paper finds evidence that Texas’ home equity restrictions exert a robust negative impact on mortgage default.

This is a really important paper asking a really important question.  If its findings are confirmed, it brings us back to that age-old question of paternalism in consumer financial protection: should we limit a consumer’s choice if that choice is consistently shown to have harmful effects?  I am not sure where I come down in this particular case, but I wonder if some version of Quercia et al.‘s benefit ratio could help measure the costs and benefits of such a rule. The benefit ratio compares “the percent reduction in the number of defaults to the percent reduction in the number of borrowers who would have access to [a certain type of] mortgages.” (20) I am not sure whether access to cash out refi mortgages is of the same import as purchase mortgages or even plain old refis, but the concept of the benefit ratio might still make sense in this context.

Access to Sustainable Credit

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Reid & Quercia have posted Risk, Access and the QRM Reproposal. This document is intended to influence the most recent proposed rulemaking for the Qualified Residential Mortgages (QRMs). The rulemaking process for the QRM has been controversial and the stakes could not be higher for the health of the residential mortgage market. The first  proposed rulemaking in 2011 would have required QRMs to have substantial down payments. A broad coalition of lenders and consumer groups believed that this requirement would excessively restrict credit and so the regulators responsible for the QRM rule issued an new proposed rulemaking in 2013 that removed the requirement for down payments from the QRM definition.

Reid & Quercia argue that the more restrictive 2011 proposed QRM rule only provided marginal benefits over the 2013 proposed QRM rule, while significantly restricting credit particularly for households of color. They note that the “objective of weighing the marginal benefit of stricter QRM requirements against the costs of cutting off access to the mainstream mortgage market is an important one.” (7) They have created simple metrics “for evaluating the tradeoffs of reducing the number of defaults against the number of successful borrowers who would not be able to obtain a QRM loan as a result of stricter down payment and credit score requirements” (7)

While Reid & Quercia do not say so explicitly, I believe that their metrics, such as the benefit ratio, should be explicitly worked into the final QRM rule so that regulators are constantly considering the two sides of credit: availability and sustainability. There is a lot of pressure to increase access to residential mortgage credit by a range of players — consumer advocates, lenders and politicians to name just a few. But credit that cannot be sustained by homeowners leads to mortgage default and foreclosure. We will be doing new homeowners no favors by letting them take out mortgages with payments that they cannot consistently make, year in and year out.

 

Lifting a Shadow from Qualified Residential Mortgages

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The self-named Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee of the American Enterprise Institute has issued a statement on The New Qualified Residential Mortgage Rule Proposal.  The Shadow Committee argues that agencies promulgating the newest version of the QRM rule

completely abandoned the Act’s requirement for a separate high-quality QRM. Instead, they proposed a QRM that was essentially the equivalent of the QM. This not only violated the congressional intent and nullified the retainage, but it pushed the US mortgage system back toward the very policies that fed the housing bubble, the mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis. It responds to those want the mortgage finance system to make mortgage credit widely available, but it ignores the need for a stable system that will avoid a future crisis. (2)

This is not fully accurate. The QRM proposal does not violate congressional intent because Congress merely stated that the QRM be “no broader” than the QM. (Dodd-Frank Act Section 941) There is also a fair amount of fear-mongering here because the Shadow Committee does not propose how we can responsibly balance credit availability with systemic stability.

Nonetheless, the Shadow Committee is right to note that the rules governing mortgages must balance a number of competing goals.
When the proposed rule was released, I had written that it should incorporate a “benefit ratio” which

compares “the percent reduction in the number of defaults to the percent reduction in the number of borrowers who would have access to QRM mortgages.” (20) A metric of this sort would go a long way to ensuring that there is transparency for homeowners as to the likelihood that they can not only get a mortgage but also pay it off and keep their homes.

A benefit ratio would not only help ensure that homeowners received sustainable mortgages, but it would also address the systemic concerns raised by the Shadow Committee. This is because the benefit ratio would protect lenders from their own worse instincts as they lower their underwriting standards in pursuit of increased market share in a booming market.

American Dream/American Nightmare

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I will be presenting “How Low Is Too Low? The Federal Housing Administration and the Low Down Payment Mortgage” at the 2013 Meeting of the Canadian Law and Economics Association next week in Toronto. I just came back from an interesting conference at the Cleveland Fed where I was on a panel devoted to the FHA. The other two panelists presented some disturbing findings about default rates for FHA mortgages.

The two panelists were

Edward J. Pinto, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, How the FHA Hurts Working-Class Families

Joseph Tracy, Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor to the President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Interpreting the Recent Developments in Housing Markets

Pinto’s summary is as follows:

The Federal Housing Administration’s mission is to be a targeted provider of mortgage credit for low- and moderate-income Americans and first-time home buyers, leading to homeownership success and neighborhood stability. But is the FHA achieving this mission? This paper reports on a comprehensive study that shows the FHA is engaging in practices resulting in a high proportion of low- and moderate-income families losing their homes. Based on an analysis of the FHA’s FY 2009 and 2010 books of business, the FHA’s lending practices are inconsistent with its mission. The findings indicate: An estimated 40 percent of the FHA’s business consists of loans with either one or two subprime attributes—a FICO score below 660 or a debt ratio greater than or equal to 50 percent (based on loans insured during FY 2012). The FHA’s underwriting policies encourage low- and moderate-income families with low credit scores or high debt burdens to make risky financing decisions—combining a low credit score and/or a high debt ratio with a 30-year loan term and a low down payment. A substantial portion of these loans has an expected failure rate exceeding 10 percent. Across the country, 9,000 zip codes with a median family income below the metro area median have projected foreclosure rates equal to or greater than 10 percent. These zips have an average projected foreclosure rate of 15 percent and account for 44 percent of all FHA loans in the low- and moderate-income zips.

Tracy reported that rates of defaults by households rather than by mortgages gave a truer picture of the FHA’s success because many FHA borrowers would refinance into another FHA loan. Thus, to study defaults by mortgages covers up the real rate of default.

I believe that their studies were preliminary and have not gone through peer review, but both of them reported extraordinary default rates for certain types of FHA mortgages.

Pinto and his empirical work are very controversial so I cannot endorse his findings. But I can say that if he got it only somewhat right about predictable and ridiculously high default rates for some categories of borrowers, the FHA must immediately defend the underwriting of such loans or change its practices. It would be criminal to have predictable default rates in excess of 20% for any population. Such a rate transforms the American Dream of homeownership into an American Nightmare of foreclosure far, far too often.

Benefit Ratios for Qualified Residential Mortgages

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As I had noted previously,

the long awaited Proposed Rule that addresses the definition of Qualified Residential Mortgages has finally been released, with comments due by October 30th. The Proposed Rule’s preferred definition of a QRM is the same as a Qualified Mortgage. There is going to be a lot of comments on this proposed rule because it indicates that a QRM will not require a down payment. This is a far cry from the 20 percent down payment required by the previous proposed rule (the 20011 Proposed Rule).

The Proposed Rule notes that in “developing the definition of a QRM in the original proposal,” the six agencies [OCC, FRS, FDIC, FHFA, SEC and HUD] responsible for it “articulated several goals and principles.” (250)

First, the agencies stated that QRMs should be of very high credit quality, given that Congress exempted QRMs completely from the credit risk retention requirements.

Second, the agencies recognized that setting fixed underwriting rules to define a QRM could exclude many mortgages to creditworthy borrowers. In this regard, the agencies recognized that a trade-off exists between the lower implementation and regulatory costs of providing fixed and simple eligibility requirements and the lower probability of default attendant to requirements that incorporate detailed and compensating underwriting factors.

* * *

Fourth, the agencies sought to implement standards that would be transparent and verifiable to participants in the market.” (250)

After reviewing the comments to the 2011 Proposed Rule, the agencies concluded that “a QRM definition that aligns with the definition of a QM meets the statutory goals and directive of section 15G of the Exchange Act to limit credit risk, preserves access to affordable credit, and facilitates compliance.” (256)

I was somewhat disturbed, however, by the following passage. The agencies are

concerned about the prospect of imposing further constraints on mortgage credit availability at this time, especially as such constraints might disproportionately affect groups that have historically been disadvantaged in the mortgage market, such as lower-income, minority, or first-time homebuyers. (263)

While it is important to make residential credit broadly available, the agencies will be doing borrowers no favors if their loans are not sustainable and they end up in default or foreclosure. The agencies should come up with a metric that balances responsible underwriting with access to credit and apply that metric to the definition of a QRM.

Quercia et al. have developed one such metric, which they refer to as a “benefit ratio.” The benefit ratio compares “the percent reduction in the number of defaults to the percent reduction in the number of borrowers who would have access to QRM mortgages.” (20) A metric of this sort would go a long way to ensuring that there is transparency for homeowners as to the likelihood that they can not only get a mortgage but also pay it off and keep their homes.