PropertyProf Blog

Mayer et al. on Mortgage Modification and Strategic Behavior

Christopher J. Mayer (Columbia Business), Edward R. Morrison (Columbia Law), Tomasz Piskorski (Columbia Business) and Arpit Gupta (Columbia Business) have posted Mortgage Modification and Strategic Behavior: Evidence from a Legal Settlement with Countrywide on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

We investigate whether homeowners respond strategically to news of mortgage modification programs. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in modification policy induced by U.S. state government lawsuits against Countrywide Financial Corporation, which agreed to offer modifications to seriously delinquent borrowers with subprime mortgages throughout the country. Using a difference-in-difference framework, we find that Countrywide's relative delinquency rate increased thirteen percent per month immediately after the program's announcement. The borrowers whose estimated default rates increased the most in response to the program were those who appear to have been the least likely to default otherwise, including those with substantial liquidity available through credit cards and relatively low combined loan-to-value ratios. These results suggest that strategic behavior should be an important consideration in designing mortgage modification programs.

Steve Clowney

 

FHA Loans Still the Best?

Kenneth Harney of the L.A. Times reports that although FHA has raised some fees, it still offers homebuyers many advantages over its private-sector rivals:

The FHA . . . continues to offer much higher and more flexible maximum debt-to-income ratios, far more generous underwriting and lower down payments, and will accept FICO scores that conventional lenders and private insurers won't touch.

Steve Clowney

Borden and Vattamala on Series LLCs in Real Estate Transactions

Bradley Borden (Brooklyn) and Mathews Vattamala (Student-Brooklyn) have posted Series LLCs in Real Estate Transactions (Real Property, Probate, and Trust Law Journal) on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

Series limited liability companies are a fairly new form of business entity. Some observers worry that series limited liability companies are untested and business and property owners should wait to use them. Meanwhile, tax and business law practitioners are moving forward, recommending that their clients take advantage of the opportunities series limited liability companies present. This article reviews the growing popularity of series limited liability companies and the statutory framework of the Delaware series limited liability company statute. It suggests that any hesitancy to use series limited liability companies is unfounded and that they will continue to grow in popularity. The article then discusses the tax classification of series, concluding that recently proposed Treasury regulations provide property and business owners considerable latitude in choosing the tax classification of series. Finally, the article illustrates how property owners may use series limited liability companies to minimize the complexities of ownership and transactional structures.

Steve Clowney

Boyack on Regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Andrea Boyack (George Washington) has posted Laudable Goals and Unintended Consequences: The Role and Control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (American Law Review).  Here's the abstract:

The United States is struggling to emerge from an era of loose mortgage underwriting standards – lapses in credit analysis that led to origination and securitization of toxic loans. The fallout has been crippling, costing borrowers their homes, investors their money, and the government its taxes.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd-Frank Act) passed last summer was the first comprehensive effort to address the problems in the system that led – in sequence – to the subprime crisis, the housing crisis, and the financial crisis. The Dodd-Frank Act, which contains over 2,300 pages of legislation, is very broad as well as very detailed – even though hundreds of rulemakings have yet to completely define its parameters. But this extensive legislation deliberately did not deal with the biggest elephant (or perhaps elephants) in the room: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), behemoths of the secondary mortgage market, are currently in conservatorship and have (so far) cost taxpayers over $130 billion. Yet our current residential mortgage market is utterly dependent upon them for credit and liquidity. With political pressures to stop taxpayer bailouts and the reality of a frozen mortgage market should Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cease to exist, when it comes to the GSEs, the administration feels damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

For decades, the U.S. mortgage finance system was the envy of the world – the only industrialized nation to have a significant segment of housing costs covered by private capital through a securitization investment system. The United States is the only country to routinely offer homebuyers 30-year fixed-rate pre-payable mortgage loans. Better capital accessibility has made more homeownership opportunities more available to more Americans. The GSEs have performed a vital role in financing the production of rental housing as well. Our real estate capital markets set the gold standard worldwide for what is possible in freeing trapped asset values and increasing the wealth of borrowers and investors alike.

Over the past decade, this system undoubtedly became unhinged – and it is critical to reform its failings. But a complete wind-down of the government sponsored enterprises that are the linchpin of our housing finance system goes too far. Subtracting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the finance equation may very well be market suicide, and the repercussions for borrowers, communities and investors would be dire indeed. Furthermore, this extreme step is unnecessary: the system’s failures can be adequately (and better) addressed within the GSE framework.

Undoubtedly there is still ample dirty “bathwater” to throw out as we reform the mortgage finance market system. But it would be an excruciating mistake to bow to political pressures and throw out the “baby” too. Current and future mortgage borrowers will only be adequately “protected” if they are empowered through access to capital, appropriately constrained by valid underwriting criteria. A well functioning market – rather than political scapegoating – is the best way to emerge from the recession and protect future buyers and investors alike.

This article first discusses the history and purposes of the GSEs and what went wrong with the system that led to the 2008 conservatorship and bailout. With reference to the Obama Administration’s February 2011 Report to Congress, “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market,” Part II analyzes proposals to reform and wind down the GSEs in light of their likely legal and market impact. Part III offers some general suggestions on better approaches to crafting America’s future mortgage market and advocates for solutions more precisely tailored to remedy apparent systemic problems while achieving the identified policy goals.

Steve Clowney

White House Releases Plan for the Future of Housing Financing Market

The White House released a proposal today that would dramatically alter the long-term future of the American housing financing market, in ways that are almost as important and fundamental as the creation of the FNMA (later Fannie Mae) in 1938.

Starting in 1938, the U.S. government created and became the most important -- and often only -- player in the secondary mortgage market.  The FNMA bought loans and mortgages from banks, thereby allowing lenders to transfer the risk of default, but only if those loans met certain quality standards.  The secondary mortgage market was a great success and was responsible for much of the post-war housing boom in America.  The FNMA was semi-privatized in 1968, becoming Fannie Mae.  It helped created the mortgage-backed securities market, but when faced with competition from other players in the secondary mortgage market who captured market share by purchasing and securitizing loans that didn't meet its quality standards, Fannie Mae lowered its standards.  Because the appetite of investors for mortgage-backed securities was voracious, there was soon a race to the bottom through subprime lending.  Because Fannie Mae still had special privileges with regard to taxation and borrowing from the federal government, many investors assumed or gambled that Fannie Mae would be rescued by the federal government in the event it began to crash.  It did, and they were right.

The new plan's main objective is to release the United States from it's role as a de facto backstop for Fannie Mae, so that taxpayers aren't liable for reckless lending -- and presumably, so that reckless lending is less likely since liability for it will stay with lenders.  It offers 3 paths to that goal, essentially gradations of the same objective -- either (1) limiting its backstop role to certain targeted borrowers (such as lower income borrowers purchasing affordable housing), who meet the previously enforced Fannie Mae quality standards; (2) limiting its role to those borrowers during a time of crisis; or (3) eliminating its backstop role entirely. 

If implemented, any of these plans is likely to raise the cost of borrowing, since the risk of default must be priced into the private market system in ways that it may not have been previously.  I intend to write more about the plan's implications as I have more time to study it, but it is safe to say that what is envisioned is a reduced participatory role for the government in home lending; what isn't yet clear to me is whether the regulatory role of the government will increase or decrease correspondingly.

An apparently ideologically-distasteful truth in this mess is that the FNMA worked very well from 1938 to 1968.  But there is no stomach now for a government agency capturing an entire private market, even though it was able to impose quality standards that kept the market stable and functioning.  Since there is no stomach to dominate the market, the question is whether any participation is appropriate.  The plan's answer: perhaps, but only in the most limited sense.  My concern is that in the absence of significant particpation, quality assurance can only be achieved either by extensive oversight, or by rules that cause lenders to impose quality on themselves.

Given that, I still like my half-baked idea: lenders can make loans on whatever terms they choose, but they can't sell them all on the secondary market.  Instead some percentage -- let's say 20% -- must stay in-house in the portfolio of the originator.  But here's the key: that 20% is chosen randomly, by some computer sitting in a government agency that knows only the loan number.  It's lending Russian roulette.  Lenders can decide there own risk tolerance, but they can't fully escape it.  That should reduced the number of risky loans.

Meanwhile, the 80% of loans that enter the secondary market create capital for home lending.

Got another idea?  Speak up -- let's get in on the conversation about the future of housing finance in the United States.  If not us, who?

Mark A. Edwards

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Summary of State Foreclosure Laws

My colleague Juliet Moringiello pointed me to the National Consumer Law Center's handy summary of state foreclosure laws.  Lost of useful stuff in there.

Ben Barros

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A Modest Proposal to Avert Another Mortgage-Backed Securities Disaster

At its core, the mortgage-backed securities crisis is the product of an inadequately regulated mortgage-industry system.  This inadequacy resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from you and me to lenders and investment banks, and an economic crisis that continues the plague the country.

So I've been playing a thought-game: what's the smallest amount of regulatory reform that would completely prevent this disaster from recurring? 

I've got a nominee.

Before I explain it, I need explain how we got to the point where we need it.  To that end, here's the mortgage-backed securities crisis, in 10 easy-to-understand steps!

(follow the bump)

 

Continue reading

A Government-Mandated Foreclosure Moratorium is a Popular (and Bad) Idea

I apologize for the shameless self-promotion, but I just had an op-ed published on Huffington Post.  The Washington Post reported today that over half of Americans support a mandatory moratorium.  In my piece, I defend the White House's resistence to popular calls for a government-mandated foreclosure moratorium.

I didn't delve into this point in the op-ed, but does anyone know what the proposed legal basis of a foreclosure moratorium might be?  I find the idea that the President or Congress could order state courts to halt hundreds of thousands of cases between private parties fairly mind-boggling.   

Tanya Marsh

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Sample Real Estate Financing Documents for Teaching?

I'm looking for forms of (a) a deed of trust; (b) a sale-leaseback; (c) an installement land contract; and (d) a subordination agreement from a real estate context to use with my students.  I have the Fannie Mae form deed of trust, but would like to see other samples.  Forms for notes and mortgages are pretty easy to come by, but if you have any that you really like, I'd love to see those as well.  If you have any such forms that you'd be willing to share, please e-mail me - [email protected] .

Thanks.

Ben Barros

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Document Flaws in Mortgage Foreclosure Process

Today's NY Times has an interesting story about how various documentation issues are creating problems in the mortgage foreclosure process.  A taste:

The foreclosure machinery that has forced millions of Americans out of their homes is beginning to seize up as some lenders and their lawyers are accused of cutting corners in their pursuit of rapid home repossessions.

Evictions are expected to slow sharply, housing analysts said, as state and national law enforcement officials shine a light on questionable foreclosure methods revealed by two of the country’s biggest home lenders in the last two weeks....

As more defaulting homeowners become aware of the lenders’ problems, they are expected to hire lawyers and challenge the proceedings against them. And if completed foreclosures were not properly done, families who bought the troubled homes could be vulnerable to claims by the former owners.

Apparently alarmed about such a possibility, one of the major title insurance companies, Old Republic National Title, has sent a bulletin to agents saying that “until further notice” it would not insure title to properties foreclosed upon by GMAC Mortgage, the country’s fourth-largest home lender and one of the two big lenders at the center of the current controversy.

Ben Barros

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Smith on The Structural Causes of Mortgage Fraud

Jim Smith (Georgia) has posted The Structural Causes of Mortgage Fraud on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

Mortgage fraud, often a violation of federal and state criminal statutes, covers a number of different types of behavior, all of which have the common denominator of conduct that has the intent or effect of impairing the value of residential mortgage loans. Mortgage fraud has become prevalent over the past decade and shows no signs of diminishing despite the collapse of domestic housing markets during the past two years. This paper analyzes the complex relationships between prime mortgage loan markets, subprime markets, and various types of mortgage fraud. This paper concludes that the root causes of mortgage fraud are associated with the core institutional and structural components of mortgage markets, which cut across all types of residential mortgage products. The organizing principle is the historical evolution from proximity to distance within the mortgage market, which is explored along three axes. First, geographical distance between lenders and borrowers has replaced geographical proximity. The mortgage market is national, with local lending institutions no longer making a significant proportion of the loans that are originated. Second, transactional distance has replaced transactional proximity. Lenders and borrowers have little direct contact; instead intermediaries such as mortgage brokers, appraisers, insurers, and closing officers, separate the principals. Third, financial distance has replaced financial proximity. Previously both borrowers and lenders had significant financial interests in the mortgage loan transaction. The borrower had equity in the property, and the lender held the loan in its portfolio. Presently many borrowers have no equity (or negative equity) in their homes, and due to the securitization of loans through the secondary mortgage market, few originating lenders retain a stake in the loans they create. Reforms that could serve to reduce borrower-lender distance or to ameliorate its effects include the fashioning of better closing procedures for verifying borrower identity, providing a premium for community-bank loans to local borrowers, making originating lenders liable for all misconduct by appraisers, requiring significant down payments for borrowers, and allowing secondary market purchasers full recourse against originating lenders for losses caused by borrower defaults.

Ben Barros

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Pomeroy on Surprise Liens on Real Property

Chad J. Pomeroy (Fabian & Clendenin, P.C.) has posted Ending Surprise Liens on Real Property on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

Academics, law makers, and the general public have long believed that "secret liens" are problematic. In real property, these are liens that are not recorded in the real property filing system. Secret liens become especially problematic when they are enforced, despite their secrecy, against subsequent purchasers of the property. If the purchaser does not satisfy the lien by paying the underlying debt, the lien holder can foreclose on the property. One of the main purposes of having real property recording statutes was to avoid "surprise liens" (secret liens afforded priority over subsequent purchasers) and ensure that real estate purchasers and investors are fully informed. Yet surprise liens continue to exist and are, in fact, increasingly accepted by lawmakers.

This Article examines two prototypical surprise liens – federal estate tax liens and mechanics’ liens – and proposes that these are indicative of a trend wherein modern lawmakers are increasingly tolerant of surprise liens. This Article then examines potential justifications for this deviation from the longstanding preference against these types of liens. First, some argue that property filing systems are economically inefficient. Second, some argue that creditors and purchasers do not actually check property filing systems. Finally, the Article identifies and addresses the possibility that law makers justify surprise liens based upon the identity of the lienor.

After examining these arguments, this Article concludes that the first two justifications are convincingly countered by existing economic theory and circumstances and that creditors and buyers do, in fact, rely on real property records. This leaves lienor identity as the true driver behind the rising acceptance of surprise liens. This justification, identified herein, is ultimately based upon the perceived social economic benefits arising from granting these favored classes the right to surprise liens. A careful examination of the full economic consequences of surprise liens, however, demonstrates that this justification is not sufficient and ultimately self-defeating.

Granting special rights to certain classes of lienors imposes higher individual costs than is commonly believed and also creates significant costs that likely counter any social economic benefits actually created. Additionally, surprise liens (even if economically justified) defeat basic conceptions of fairness inherent in the American system of jurisprudence and arising out of basic concepts of due process and social ethics. This Article therefore concludes that these liens should be removed through a strengthening of recording concepts at both a state and federal level.

Ben Barros

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Lehavi on Property Rights in an Era of Global Finance

Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted Property Rights in an Era of Global Finance on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

This chapter for the Encyclopedia of Financial Globalization studies the unique challenges of property rights in an era of global finance. It first defines the fundamental features of property, trying to bridge the gap that often exists between lawyers and economists in conceptualizing this term. The chapter then explains the local origins of property laws and the ways in which their traditional construct is being increasingly challenged by the forces of globalization. It surveys the prominent institutions and mechanisms that currently address the cross-border effects of property rights through supranational norm-making or other types of coordination among different national property systems. Finally, the chapter moves to a more resource-specific analysis of the challenges of property rules in a globalized era. It assesses how the ordering of property rights in land, chattels, intangibles, and intellectual property can be better adapted to a rapidly-changing global financial environment.

Ben Barros

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Hauser on Home Mortgage Modification in Bankruptcy

Susan E. Hauser (North Carolina Central University - School of Law) has posted Cutting the Gordian Knot: The Case for Allowing Modification of Home Mortgages in Bankruptcy on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

More than 5 million mortgages have gone into foreclosure since 2007, and an additional 8 to 13 million foreclosures are projected to follow before the current foreclosure crisis abates. Voluntary loan modification programs have failed to ameliorate the crisis, in large part because mortgage lending abuses and declining home values have left many borrowers stranded in "under-water" mortgages.

This article endorses a targeted amendment to section 1322(b)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code that would allow bankruptcy judges to oversee the modification of residential mortgages written to borrowers during years when mortgage-lending abuses were most rampant. Part I of this Article examines existing Bankruptcy Code provisions that allow the modification of other types of loans and then traces the history of the existing statutory and case law that currently prevents borrowers from modifying the terms of most residential mortgages in bankruptcy. Part II describes legislation presently pending in Congress and explains why allowing home mortgages to be modified in chapter 13 bankruptcy offers an efficient and fair solution that not only allows borrowers to remain in their homes, but also benefits lenders and taxpayers. Part III considers and distinguishes the counterarguments offered by the mortgage banking industry.

My conclusion is that allowing mortgages to be modified in chapter 13 plans offers distinct advantages to all parties. Accordingly, a time-limited amendment to section 1322(b)(2) would provide a simple and elegant mechanism for reducing the pain that the home mortgage crisis is causing to borrowers, communities, creditors, and the national economy.

Ben Barros

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Way on Informal Homeownership

Heather K. Way (Texas) has posted Informal Homeownership in the United States and the Law on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

This article examines how millions of lower-income families in the United States attempt to acquire title to their homes informally, outside the mortgage market and instead through mechanisms such as lease-to-own contracts and intestacy. Many of these families are left holding inferior and insecure title to their homes--if they hold title at all. The article explores the benefits and pitfalls of "informal homeownership" and the legal structures that perpetuate disparties between formal and informal homeownership. The article then proposes a series of legal reforms to help ensure that the American legal system provides lower-income families with better opportunities to obtain secure title to their homes.

Ben Barros

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White on Emotion and Strategic Default

Brent T. White (Arizona) has posted Take This House and Shove It: The Emotional Drivers of Strategic Default on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

An increasingly influential view is that strategic defaulters make a rational choice to default because they have substantial negative equity. This article, which is based upon the personal accounts of over 350 individuals, argues that this depiction of strategic defaulters as rational actors is woefully incomplete. Negative equity alone does not drive many strategic defaulters’ decisions to intentionally stop paying their mortgages. Rather, their decisions to default are driven primarily by emotion – typically anxiety and hopelessness about their financial futures and anger at their lenders’ and the government’s unwillingness to help. If the government and the mortgage industry wish to stem the tide of strategic default, they must address these emotions.

Because emotions are primary, however, principal reductions may not be necessary. Rather, many underwater homeowners simply need some reason to feel less apprehensive about the financial consequences of continuing to pay their underwater mortgages. One possible way to provide this comfort would be a “rent-based loan program,” allowing underwater homeowners to refinance their entire balances to an interest rate that would bring their mortgage payment in line with the rental cost of a comparable home. Indeed, a rent-based approach would relieve many underwater homeowners’ financial anxiety and likely be enough alone to stem the tide of strategic default.

Ben Barros

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Rodriguez-Dod on Protecting Tenants from Foreclosure Evictions

Eloisa C. Rodriguez-Dod (Nova Southeastern) has posted Stop Shutting the Door on Renters: Protecting Tenants from Foreclosure Evictions on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

This article discusses existing and proposed federal and state law affecting tenants’ rights in foreclosure. As “Foreclosure” signs rapidly join “For Sale” signs across the country, the national foreclosure crisis has not only displaced homeowners, but a plethora of renters as well. The approach taken by states concerning tenants affected by foreclosure varies greatly. Furthermore, a recently enacted federal law, created specifically to help tenants in foreclosure, does not relieve the uncertainty in resolving this issue. In addition to being the first to critique the new federal law, this article offers recommendations for legislation that may better protect tenants from foreclosure-related evictions.

Ben Barros

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Harris on Recourse and Non-Recourse Mortgages

Ron Harris (Tel Aviv) has posted Recourse and Non-Recourse Mortgages: Foreclosure, Bankruptcy, Policy on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

The recourse-non-recourse dimension is fundamental in any loan as it deals most directly with the pool of assets out of which lender can collect at delinquency and default. This paper calls attention to an exceptional feature of the American home mortgage market, compared to mortgage markets elsewhere in the world, the prevalence of non-recourse mortgages as created by foreclosure rules in leading states such as California and Arizona and federal bankruptcy law. It explains how the legal impediments on recourse to personal assets and future income, together with the recent drop in home prices, led to a dramatic rise in strategic foreclosures (ones that resulted from negative equity rather than from cash-flow problems). No less than 588,000 strategic walk-away mortgage defaults took place, representing nearly 20% of all foreclosures in 2008. Most of these were not likely to happen in a recourse regime.

The paper then deals with policy. It uses a few theoretical frameworks: put option, default insurance, asset partitioning and screening. It examines the pros and cons of recourse regime and of non-recourse regime. It concludes that there is no compelling justification for prohibiting either recourse or non-recourse loans. The benefits and pitfalls of a dual regime are then examined. The question relating to why we don't observe a dual regime in the real world is addressed. The paper recommends that jurisdictions that prohibit recourse loans lift this prohibition. It concludes that both recourse and non-recourse should be on the table, on the levels of regulation policy and lending practices.

Ben Barros

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Arruñada and Lehavi on New Models for Residential Development and Fiance

Benito Arruñada (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) have posted Prime Property Institutions for a Subprime Era: Exploring Innovative Models of Residential Development and Finance on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

This paper breaks new ground toward contractual and institutional innovation in models of homeownership, equity building, and mortgage enforcement. Inspired by recent developments in the affordable housing sector and in other types of public financing schemes, this paper suggests extending institutional and financial strategies such as time- and place-based division of property rights, conditional subsidies, and credit mediation to alleviate the systemic risks of mortgage foreclosure. Alongside a for-profit shared equity scheme that would be led by local governments, we also outline a private market shared equity model, one of bootstrapping home buying with purchase options.

Ben Barros

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Moringiello on Mortgage Modification

Juliet M. Moringiello (Widener) has posted Mortgage Modification, Equitable Subordination, and the Honest but Unfortunate Creditor on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

Mortgage foreclosures are at an all-time high and property values in many parts of the country have declined precipitously. Yet bankruptcy, which is often a last resort for individuals in financial distress, provides little relief to a homeowner who finds that her mortgage debt exceeds the value of her home. The reason for bankruptcy’s inadequacy in this regard is the Bankruptcy Code’s prohibition on the modification of home mortgages, a prohibition that became part of bankruptcy law in 1978, when most home mortgage loans were 30-year fixed rate loans made by savings and loan associations. While most secured loans can be stripped down in bankruptcy, reflecting the payment that the lender would receive if it were forced to foreclose on the collateral, a home mortgage loan must be paid in full, giving the lender more than it would receive under state law.

In recent years, abusive mortgage practices have proliferated. These abusive practices, which have prevented homeowners from building equity in their homes, harm not only the debtor, but also the debtor’s other creditors. Despite their behavior, however, home mortgage lenders who engage in these practices continue to receive favorable treatment in bankruptcy. In this paper, I argue that creditors should be denied special treatment in bankruptcy unless they behave in an “honest but unfortunate” manner. Judges can deny this special treatment by using a time-honored bankruptcy principle, the principle of equitable subordination, to subordinate the unsecured portion of a home mortgage loan to all secured and priority claims. While equitable subordination, by itself, will not solve the foreclosure crisis, it may, by reducing the claims of abusive mortgagees, deter abusive lending practices in the future.

Ben Barros

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