Must-Read: Christopher L. Foote, Lara Loewenstein, and Paul S. Willen: Cross-Sectional Patterns of Mortgage Debt during the Housing Boom: Evidence and Implications

Must-Read: Christopher L. Foote, Lara Loewenstein, and Paul S. Willen: Cross-Sectional Patterns of Mortgage Debt during the Housing Boom: Evidence and Implications: “[The] reallocation of mortgage debt to low-income or marginally qualified borrowers…

…[in] the early 2000s housing boom… never occurred…. The distribution of mortgage debt with respect to income changed little…. There is no evidence that increases in homeownership during the boom were concentrated among low-income or marginal borrowers. Previous cross-sectional research stressing the importance of low-income borrowers and communities during the mortgage boom was based on the inflow of new mortgage originations alone. As a result, it could not detect offsetting outflows in mortgage terminations that left the allocation of debt with respect to income stable over time.