MODELING THE PERFORMANCE OF FHA-INSURED LOANS: BORROWER HETEROGENEITY AND THE EXERCISE OF MORTGAGE DEFAULT AND PREPAYMENT OPTIONS Report to Office of Policy Development and Research U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 451 Seventh St., SW Room 8212 Washington, D.C. 220410 by Yongheng Deng and Stuart Gabriel†
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[email protected] Unicon Research Corporation 1640 Fifth Street, Suite 100 Santa Monica, CA 90401 May, 2002 † The authors are Assistant Professor and Lusk Chair and Director, Lusk Center for Real Estate, School of Policy, Planning and Development and Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. This project was funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under Contract: C- OPC 18484 Task Order 6. The authors are grateful to Dr. Robert Cotterman at Unicon Research Corporation for data preparation and to Lihong Yang for excellent research assistance. Any opinions expressed or implied are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. Government. 1 MODELING THE PERFORMANCE OF FHA-INSURED LOANS: BORROWER HETEROGENEITY AND THE EXERCISE OF MORTGAGE DEFAULT AND PREPAYMENT OPTIONS by Yongheng Deng and Stuart Gabriel Abstract Although mortgage loans to lower-income and higher credit risk borrowers are characterized by elevated default probabilities, those risks may be mitigated by their slower prepayment speeds. Loans to higher credit risk borrowers may prepay more slowly (when prepayment option is “in the money”) owing to difficulties in borrower access to mortgage credit, problems of mortgage qualification, limited borrower knowledge of mortgage refinance options, or damped residential mobility.