Geographic Variation in Subprime Loan Features, Foreclosures, and Prepayments

Using data on subprime mortgages from ten cities, I examine geographic variation in the effects of prepayment penalties, balloon loans, and reduced documentation on the probabilities of foreclosure and prepayment. Results indicate that across cities, reduced documentation is consistently related to higher probabilities of foreclosure, and prepayment penalties are consistently related to lower probabilities of prepayment. Prepayment penalties and balloon loans are more sporadically associated with foreclosures, and reduced documentation and balloon loans are more sporadically associated with prepayments. These results are robust to controls for several state antipredatory lending law provisions, whose effects are also tested. © No rights reserved. This work was authored as part of the Contributor's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. law.