Beyond the Ltv Ratio: New Macroprudential Lessons from Spain

BEYOND THE LTV RATIO: 2019 NEW MACROPRUDENTIAL LESSONS FROM SPAIN Jorge E. Galán and Matías Lamas Documentos de Trabajo N.º 1931 BEYOND THE LTV RATIO: NEW MACROPRUDENTIAL LESSONS FROM SPAIN BEYOND THE LTV RATIO: NEW MACROPRUDENTIAL LESSONS FROM SPAIN (*) Jorge E. Galán (**) and Matías Lamas BANCO DE ESPAÑA (*) We thank Ángel Estrada, David Martínez-Miera and Javier Mencía for their very helpful comments. We also thank the participants of research seminars at Banco de España, the Danmarks Nationalbank, and the International Finance and Banking Society Conference 2019, as well as an anonymous referee, for their useful comments and suggestions. This paper is the sole responsibility of the authors. The views represented here do not necessarily reflect those of the Banco de España or the Eurosystem. (**) Corresponding autor. Address: Banco de España, Alcalá 48 - 28014, Madrid, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]. Documentos de Trabajo. N.º 1931 2019 The Working Paper Series seeks to disseminate original research in economics and ﬁ nance. All papers have been anonymously refereed. By publishing these papers, the Banco de España aims to contribute to economic analysis and, in particular, to knowledge of the Spanish economy and its international environment. The opinions and analyses in the Working Paper Series are the responsibility of the authors and, therefore, do not necessarily coincide with those of the Banco de España or the Eurosystem. The Banco de España disseminates its main reports and most of its publications via the Internet at the following website: http://www.bde.es. Reproduction for educational and non-commercial purposes is permitted provided that the source is acknowledged. © BANCO DE ESPAÑA, Madrid, 2019 ISSN: 1579-8666 (on line) Abstract Booming house prices have been historically correlated with the loosening of banks’ lending standards. Nonetheless, the evidence in Spain shows that the deterioration of lending policies may not be fully captured by the popular loan-to-value (LTV) ratio. Drawing on two large datasets comprising more than five million mortgage operations that cover the last financial cycle, we show that the LTV indicator may exhibit a misleading picture of actual mortgage credit imbalances and risk. In turn, risk identification improves when other metrics are considered. In particular, we show that loan-to-price (LTP) as well as ratios that consider the income of borrowers are major determinants of mortgage defaults. Moreover, we identify relevant non-linear effects of lending standards on default risk. Finally, we document that the relationship between lending standards and default rates changes over the cycle. Overall, the findings provide useful insights for the design of the macroprudential policy mix and, in particular, for the implementation of borrower-based measures. Keywords: housing market, lending standards, defaults, macroprudential policy. JEL classification: C25, E58, G01, G21, R30. Resumen Incrementos excesivos de los precios de la vivienda han estado históricamente correlacionados con el deterioro de los estándares crediticios de las hipotecas. No obstante, la evidencia en España muestra que la ratio préstamo-valor (LTV, por sus siglas en inglés) no refleja apropiadamente estos estándares. Utilizando dos extensas bases de datos que incluyen información de más de cinco millones de operaciones hipotecarias en España durante un período que cubre el pasado ciclo financiero, encontramos evidencia de que el indicador LTV presenta importantes limitaciones para el análisis de vulnerabilidades. Hallamos que la identificación de los riesgos mejora cuando se incluyen otros indicadores. En particular, reconocemos que la ratio préstamo-precio de transmisión (LTP, por sus siglas en inglés), así como ratios que incorporan el ingreso de los prestatarios, son determinantes muy relevantes de los impagos de hipotecas. Adicionalmente, identificamos importantes efectos no lineales de los estándares de crédito sobre el riesgo de impago. Por último, encontramos que la relación entre los estándares de crédito y la probabilidad de impago es dinámica y cambia a lo largo del ciclo financiero. En general, nuestros resultados proporcionan un mejor entendimiento de los efectos que puede tener la implementación de medidas macroprudenciales. Palabras clave: mercado de la vivienda, estándares de crédito, riesgo de impago, política macroprudencial. Códigos JEL: C25, E58, G01, G21, R30. 1 Introduction The real estate sector has historically played a major role on previous systemic crises (Jordà et al., 2016). In particular, a close relationship between imbalances in real estate prices and credit has been identified in several countries (Shüller et al., 2015; Galati et al., 2016; Rünstler and Vlekke, 2017).1 Recent international evidence also shows a large deterioration of lending standards in countries that presented a boom of house prices and credit in the past (Kelly et al., 2019, show evidence for European Union countries). Certainly, the correlation between the deterioration of lending standards and systemic crises is well documented in a number of cross-country studies (Lim et al., 2011; Claessens et al., 2012; Cerutti et al., 2017).2 These findings have motivated authorities in many countries to actively use borrower-based measures to ensure sound banks’ lending policies, especially after the last crisis. In general, these measures, which mainly consist of limiting the amount of credit mortgagors can borrow, appear to be very effective in containing house prices growth and mitigating the pro-cyclicality of credit and leverage (Wong et al., 2011; Claessens et al., 2012; Kelly et al., 2018). In this context, loan-to-value (LTV) limits seem to be the preferred policy tool. Indeed, by 2013 half of countries of a large sample compiled by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had implemented caps on LTV (IMF, 2013).3 More recently, the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) reports that 18 countries in the EU have implemented LTV caps since 2013 (ESRB, 2018). Nonetheless, policy circumvention might impair the effectiveness of policy tools such as LTV limits. The reason is that banks may circumvent regulation through different mechanisms, such as increasing consumption credit, loosening other lending standards, or re-allocating their portfolios towards borrowers with a riskier profile. These types of unintended consequences have been recently documented in Canada, Israel, Turkey, and Ireland (see IMF, 2013; Baziki and Çapaciouglu, 2018; Tzu-Ilan, 2017; Acharya et al., 2019; respectively). In Spain, some restrictions to issue covered bonds shed light on another interesting mechanism to by-pass LTV constraints (Duca et al., 2010). To issue these securities, Spanish banks need to maintain eligible collateral, i.e. mortgages that meet certain characteristics. Mainly, mortgages with LTV above 80% are excluded from the eligible collateral pool (see IMF, 2006, for more details on this regulation). As a consequence, before the crisis and in a context of rapid credit growth banks had incentives to grant loans with too optimistic or inflated appraisals as a means to increase the stock of eligible loans and raise secured funding. The existing evidence shows that the presence of inflated valuations in mortgages collateral was certainly important in Spain (see, Bover et al., 2019; Montalvo and Raya, 2018). This confirms that policy implementation should not rely on a single measure, like LTV limits. Likewise, it suggests that the assessment of lending standards should not depend exclusively on the LTV ratio, as it may provide an incomplete picture of vulnerabilities in certain cases. 1 In Spain, this relationship has been very strong. Systemic crises in Spain have been preceded by periods of rapid growth of house prices, mortgage credit and credit to construction firms and real estate developers (Estrada and Saurina, 2016). 2 Other studies have also confirmed the connection between lending standards and the probability of default of mortgages (May and Tudela, 2005; Aron and Muellbauer, 2016; Lazarov and Hinterschweiger, 2018). 3 Cerutti et al. (2017) extend the sample to 119 different countries finding that caps on LTV ratios are used in 21% of the sample. BANCO DE ESPAÑA 7 DOCUMENTO DE TRABAJO N.º 1931 Against this background, our contribution to the literature is threefold. First, we analyze to what extent the LTV ratio might mask mortgage credit imbalances when collateral valuations are biased, and whether or not other lending standards indicators might be helpful to improve risk identification. While the presence of optimistic valuations in mortgages collateral has already been covered in the literature (Agarwal et al. 2019; Ben-David, 2011), the link between inflated appraisals and defaults remains largely unexplored.4 The implications of this relationship has been recently raised as a concern among national authorities implementing borrower-based measures.5 Second, we explore non-linear effects of lending standards at origination on default risk. Non-linearities in this context have been very little explored and the few studies addressing these issues have either used small samples or focused on specific subgroups of mortgages such as those categorized as subprime or those for buy-to-let purposes (May and Tudela, 2005; Haughwout et al, 2008; Kelly and O’Toole, 2018). Third, we assess the relationship between lending standards and risk over the cycle. Recent studies have identified differential effects of borrower-based measures

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