It has been 75 years since the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was established and it is again serving as the primary backstop in the current housing market downturn, insuring roughly 39 percent of all new purchase loans. This countercyclical role for the FHA, with respect to the housing...

House price volatility; lender and borrow perception of price trends, loan and property features; and the borrower?s put option are integrated in a model of residential mortgage default. These dimensions of the default problem have, to our knowledge, not previously been considered altogether...

It has been 75 years since the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was established and it is again serving as the primary backstop in the current housing market downturn, insuring roughly 39 percent of all new purchase loans. This countercyclical role for the FHA, with respect to the housing...

Problems in the housing sector have prompted research into the causes of default by borrowers. The terms of the loans that were made, the characteristics of borrowers, and local economic conditions, among other factors, all contributed significantly to differences in default rates. State-level...