Posts By David L. Friend

Mortgage Securitization – explained and how it factored in the financial crisis

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-060.pdf Thanks to Ezra Klein’s blog on washingtonpost.com for the link – the paper is a great read (once you get past the economics) to understand exactly the mortgage back securites (MBS) market fell apart – essentially it was due to (1) bad assumptions of defalut rates, (2) poor ratings of each MBS pool byRead… Read more »

Demotech Finds Losses in 2008 Worst Ever for Title Insurance Industry

The 2008 financial results for the Title insurance industry were less than stellar. In fact, it was the worst year ever recorded in the history of “Demotech Performance of Title Insurance Companies.” See: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Demotech-Inc-982099.html I can point to several reasons for this, but the one that comes to mind first is the same one inRead… Read more »

The social benefits of home ownership look more modest than they did and the economic costs much higher

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13491933 This is an argument that many of the subsidies for home ownership, such as the interest tax deduction, wind up making housing cost more – which also increases the negative consequences of a recession since a considerable amount of individual wealth is tied into housing.

Prepackaged Ch. 13 Bankruptcies

I found this article interesting for two reasons (1) it gives a good description, as far as I can tell, of the issues and problems associated with the servicing related to defaulting loans and (2) presents a novel idea towards solving the ‘underwater’ property issues. Abstract: “The housing crisis threatens to destroy hundreds of billionsRead… Read more »