IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/wp-2018-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Contract Choice in the Interwar US Residential Mortgage Market

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan D. Rose

Abstract

This paper studies mortgage contract choices in US history using a first-of-its-kind sample of residential loans from 1930 and 1940, linked to the decennial censuses. Contract choices reflected borrowers' reactions to the risks posed by different contracts. The majority of borrowers chose contracts with the longest available terms, despite required frequent amortization, likely in order to avoid refinancing risk and to maximize leverage. In contrast, the most creditworthy borrowers with high socioeconomic status preferred short-term contracts, confident that they could refinance at will. The combination of short terms and frequent amortization was unpopular, used disproportionately by the least creditworthy. Between 1930 and 1940, contract use shifted toward longer term contracts, reflecting the advent of federal involvement in the residential mortgage market.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan D. Rose, 2018. "Contract Choice in the Interwar US Residential Mortgage Market," Working Paper Series WP-2018-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2018-13
    DOI: doi.org/10.21033/wp-2018-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.chicagofed.org/~/media/publications/working-papers/2018/wp2018-13-pdf.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/doi.org/10.21033/wp-2018-13?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. Carl F. Behrens, 1952. "Introduction to "Commercial Bank Activities in Urban Mortgage Financing"," NBER Chapters, in: Commercial Bank Activities in Urban Mortgage Financing, pages 1-13, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. R. J. Saulnier, 1950. "Appendices to "Urban Mortgage Lending by Life Insurance Companies"," NBER Chapters, in: Urban Mortgage Lending by Life Insurance Companies, pages 107-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Daniel K. Fetter, 2014. "The Twentieth-Century Increase in U.S. Home Ownership: Facts and Hypotheses," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 329-350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Brahima Coulibaly & Geng Li, 2009. "Choice of Mortgage Contracts: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 37(4), pages 659-673, December.
    5. Rose, Jonathan D. & Snowden, Kenneth A., 2013. "The New Deal and the origins of the modern American real estate loan contract," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 548-566.
    6. R. J. Saulnier, 1950. "Scope of Urban Mortgage Lending by Life Insurance Companies," NBER Chapters, in: Urban Mortgage Lending by Life Insurance Companies, pages 1-19, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Gathergood, John & Weber, Jörg, 2017. "Financial literacy, present bias and alternative mortgage products," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 58-83.
    8. Ruben Cox & Dirk Brounen & Peter Neuteboom, 2015. "Financial Literacy, Risk Aversion and Choice of Mortgage Type by Households," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 74-112, January.
    9. R. J. Saulnier, 1950. "Urban Mortgage Lending Costs and Returns of Life Insurance Companies, 1945-47," NBER Chapters, in: Urban Mortgage Lending by Life Insurance Companies, pages 58-78, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Michael Brocker & Christopher Hanes, 2014. "The 1920s American Real Estate Boom and the Downturn of the Great Depression: Evidence from City Cross-Sections," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 161-201, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Raymond J. Saulnier, 1950. "Urban Mortgage Lending by Life Insurance Companies," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number saul50-1, January.
    12. Carl F. Behrens, 1952. "Appendices and Index to "Commercial Bank Activities in Urban Mortgage Financing"," NBER Chapters, in: Commercial Bank Activities in Urban Mortgage Financing, pages 85-125, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Andreas Fuster & James Vickery, 2015. "Securitization and the Fixed-Rate Mortgage," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(1), pages 176-211.
    14. Yao-Min Chiang & Jarjisu Sa-Aadu, 2014. "Optimal Mortgage Contract Choice Decision in the Presence of Pay Option Adjustable Rate Mortgage and the Balloon Mortgage," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 709-753, May.
    15. Robert J. Shiller, 2015. "Irrational Exuberance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 3, number 10421.
    16. Price Fishback & Trevor Kollmann, 2014. "New Multicity Estimates of the Changes in Home Values, 1920-1940," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 203-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. R. J. Saulnier, 1950. "Front matter, Urban Mortgage Lending by Life Insurance Companies," NBER Chapters, in: Urban Mortgage Lending by Life Insurance Companies, pages -23--16, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Carl F. Behrens, 1952. "Commercial Bank Activities in Urban Mortgage Financing," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number behr52-1, January.
    19. Eugene N. White & Kenneth Snowden & Price Fishback, 2014. "Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fish12-2, January.
    20. White, Eugene N. & Snowden, Kenneth & Fishback, Price V. (ed.), 2014. "Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226073842, December.
    21. Snowden, Kenneth A, 1997. "Building and loan associations in the U.S., 1880-1893: the origins of localization in the residential mortgage market," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 227-250, September.
    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. Rose, Jonathan, 2021. "Short-term residential mortgage contracts in American economic history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Rose, Jonathan D. & Snowden, Kenneth A., 2013. "The New Deal and the origins of the modern American real estate loan contract," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 548-566.
    3. Jonathan D. Rose, 2011. "The Incredible HOLC? Mortgage Relief during the Great Depression," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(6), pages 1073-1107, September.
    4. David A. Price & John R. Walter, 2016. "Private Efforts for Affordable Mortgage Lending Before Fannie and Freddie," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Q4, pages 321-351.
    5. Matthew Chambers & Carlos Garriga & Don E. Schlagenhauf, 2014. "Did Housing Policies Cause the Postwar Boom in Home Ownership?," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 351-385, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Matthew Chambers & Carlos Garriga & Don E. Schlagenhauf, 2016. "The Postwar Conquest of the Home Ownership Dream," Working Papers 2016-07, Towson University, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2016.
    7. Kenneth Snowden, 2014. "A Historiography of Early NBER Housing and Mortgage Research," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 15-36, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Kenneth Snowden & Eugene N. White & Price Fishback, 2014. "Introduction to "Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective"," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 1-13, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Fishback, Price & Fleitas, Sebastian & Rose, Jonathan & Snowden, Ken, 2020. "Collateral Damage: The Impact of Foreclosures on New Home Mortgage Lending in the 1930s," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(3), pages 853-885, September.
    10. Don Schlagenhauf & Carlos Garriga & Matthew Chambers, 2012. "The New Deal, the GI Bill, and the Post-War Housing," 2012 Meeting Papers 1050, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Don E. Schlagenhauf & Carlos Garriga & Matthew Chambers, 2011. "Did Housing Policies Cause the Post-War Boom in Homeownership? A General Equilibrium Analysis," 2011 Meeting Papers 1219, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Edgar R. Fiedler, 1971. "Section F: Bibliography," NBER Chapters, in: Measures of Credit Risk and Experience, pages 348-352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Blackwell, Timothy & Kohl, Sebastian, 2017. "Varieties of housing finance in historical perspective: The impact of mortgage finance systems on urban structures and homeownership," MPIfG Discussion Paper 17/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    14. Cristina Peicuti, 2014. "The Great Depression and the Great Recession: A Comparative Analysis of their Analogies," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 11(1), pages 55-78, June.
    15. Heather Boushey, 2020. "Unbound: Releasing Inequality’s Grip on Our Economy," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 597-609, December.
    16. Christopher Foote & Kristopher Gerardi & Lorenz Goette & Paul Willen, 2010. "Reducing Foreclosures: No Easy Answers," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 89-138, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Fleitas, Sebastian & Fishback, Price & Snowden, Kenneth, 2018. "Economic crisis and the demise of a popular contractual form: Building & Loans in the 1930s," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 28-44.
    18. Passmore, Stuart Wayne & von Hafften, Alexander H., 2020. "Financing affordable and sustainable homeownership with Fixed-COFI mortgages," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    19. Garmaise, Mark J., 2020. "Alternative mortgage contracts and affordability- overview by Mark J. Garmaise," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    20. Price Fishback, 2017. "How Successful Was the New Deal? The Microeconomic Impact of New Deal Spending and Lending Policies in the 1930s," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1435-1485, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contract; mortgages; mortgage loans;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:fedhwp:wp-2018-13. 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: Lauren Wiese (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbchus.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.