IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/feddwp/99619.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Automated Underwriting and Housing Market Dynamics

Author

Abstract

We study how the 1990s adoption of now widely-used automated mortgage underwriting systems affected credit supply, house prices and their comovement across locations. The effects go well beyond processing improvements. By implementing more complex, statistically-informed lending rules, the systems allowed households to borrow more, pushing up house prices. Furthermore, by transmitting a common set of credit standards across lenders, the new technology increased credit and house price synchronization. Together, our results illustrate how new lending technology can generate correlated credit supply shocks, contributing to house price booms and increasing market interconnectedness.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephanie Johnson & Nitzan Tzur-Ilan, 2025. "Automated Underwriting and Housing Market Dynamics," Working Papers 2506, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, revised 23 Dec 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:99619
    DOI: 10.24149/wp2506r1
    Note: An earlier draft of this paper circulated under the title "Financial Technology and the 1990s Housing Boom."
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/research/papers/2025/wp2506r1.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.24149/wp2506r1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jane K. Dokko & Benjamin J. Keys & Lindsay E. Relihan, 2019. "Affordability, financial innovation and the start of the housing boom," CEP Discussion Papers dp1611, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James N. Conklin & Haoyang Liu & Calvin Zhang, 2024. "Credit supply shocks, home purchase volume, and borrowing behavior," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 52(2), pages 486-513, March.
    2. Arden Hall & Ramain Quinn Maingi, 2021. "The Behavioral Relationship Between Mortgage Prepayment and Default," Working Papers 21-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    3. Jiang, Erica Xuewei & Zhang, Anthony Lee, 2025. "Collateral value uncertainty and mortgage credit provision," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    4. Margaret Jacobson, 2019. "Beliefs, Aggregate Risk, and the U.S. Housing Boom," 2019 Meeting Papers 1549, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Claes Bäckman & Natalia Khorunzhina, 2024. "Interest‐Only Mortgages And Consumption Growth: Evidence From A Mortgage Market Reform," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(2), pages 1049-1079, May.
    6. Xiaoqing Zhou, 2025. "Financial Technology and the Transmission of Monetary Policy: The Role of Social Networks," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 122-164.
    7. Conklin, James N. & Frame, W. Scott & Gerardi, Kristopher & Liu, Haoyang, 2022. "Villains or scapegoats? The role of subprime borrowers in driving the U.S. housing boom," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    8. Bäckman, Claes & Lutz, Chandler, 2025. "Mortgage innovation and house price booms," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    9. Flannery, Mark J. & Lin, Leming & Wang, Luxi, 2022. "Housing booms and bank growth," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    10. Haslag, Peter & Srinivasan, Kandarp & Thakor, Anjan V., 2024. "Competition, Product differentiation and Crises: Evidence from 18 million securitized loans," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    11. Bin Wei & Feng Zhao, 2022. "Racial Disparities in Mortgage Lending: New Evidence Based on Processing Time," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2022-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    12. Gadi Barlevy & Jonas Fisher, 2021. "Why were interest only mortgages so population during U.S. housing boom?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 41, pages 205-224, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • L85 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Real Estate Services
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:99619. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Amy Chapman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbdaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.