From the Subprime to the Exotic: Excessive Mortgage Market Risk and Foreclosures

Problem: The recent rapid growth of high-risk mortgage lending raised the financial risk profile facing not only the American homeowner but entire neighborhoods. From the perspective of planners, the problem of increased and geographically concentrated foreclosures is the most critical outcome that has resulted from high-risk mortgage markets. Purpose: This article analyzes recent trends in mortgage finance in order to recommend what local planners can do to reduce the negative consequences of high-risk home lending for their own communities. Methods: I plot public and private data, much of it readily available for little or no cost, to discover where in the nation recent mortgage foreclosures are concentrated, and describe how similar analysis could be used prospectively and at a local scale to anticipate future problems. Results and conclusions: Numbers of subprime, exotic, and zero-down-payment mortgages have all been growing. Where they are spatially concentrated they are linked to rising and geographically concentrated home mortgage foreclosures. I find evidence that subprime lenders achieve greater market penetration in metropolitan areas with less educated residents, and that higher-risk lending is more prevalent where housing prices are high and increasing. I also find that when local housing markets are hot, even high levels of subprime lending are associated with only slightly higher foreclosure filing rates, but foreclosure rates rise quickly when hot markets cool. Takeaway for practice: Although foreclosures are less likely to be a severe problem in very strong real estate markets, when prices in previously hot markets stagnate or decline, foreclosures can quickly follow. This is a serious concern given recent trends in mortgage financing that have extended credit to more economically vulnerable populations and generally weakening housing markets in many metropolitan areas. These foreclosures tend also to be spatially concentrated within metropolitan areas, particularly stressing housing markets in neighborhoods where the higher-risk products are more prevalent. I recommend that planners: (1) track local lending and foreclosure patterns; (2) promote healthier mortgage markets in vulnerable areas; (3) fund targeted foreclosure prevention and counseling; (4) develop refinancing/restructuring programs; (5) redesign programs to promote sustainable homeownership; (6) get foreclosed properties reoccupied quickly; (7) recognize the effect of foreclosure surges on rental housing markets; and (8) be proactive in policy debates on lending regulation and foreclosure processes. Research support: None.