Despite the enormous volume of refinancing activity in conventional residential mortgages, reaching record levels during recent years of historically low interest rates, the solution to the problem of how to time refinancing decisions optimally has remained elusive. It is recognized that the decision should depend, among other factors, on the 'call' options of the outstanding and the new mortgage. Determining the value of these options is a challenge in the absence of an observable optionless mortgage yield curve. We solve this by calibrating a benchmark interest rate process to the value of the new mortgage and then apply the notion of refinancing efficiency to the timing decision. In particular, risk-averse decision makers can use refinancing efficiency to measure how close to optimal a refinancing is. We analyse the sensitivity of the decision to interest rate volatility and also show how to incorporate homeowner-specific considerations, namely borrowing horizon and income taxes. While calibration and refunding efficiency are well-known techniques in bond analysis, there is no evidence, hitherto, of their application to the mortgage-refinancing problem.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.