IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/houspd/v19y2008i4p631-673.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prepayment penalties in residential mortgage contracts: A cost‐benefit analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Michael LaCour‐Little
  • Cynthia Holmes

Abstract

Prepayment penalties are ubiquitous in the commercial mortgage market yet reviled and highly restricted by law and regulation in the residential mortgage market. Considering the perspectives of both the borrower and the lender, we attempt a balanced cost‐benefit analysis of this controversial contract feature for residential mortgage loans. We will address the following questions: What is the economic value of the prepayment penalty feature? Why is it more prevalent in the subprime than the prime market segment? Do borrowers obtain an offsetting economic benefit when they contract for a loan containing a prepayment penalty? What is the average cost of a prepayment penalty to borrowers, and how often is this cost actually incurred? In general, although we find a significant reduction in interest rates for loans containing a prepayment penalty, the expected costs outweigh the benefits by a considerable margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael LaCour‐Little & Cynthia Holmes, 2008. "Prepayment penalties in residential mortgage contracts: A cost‐benefit analysis," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 631-673, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:houspd:v:19:y:2008:i:4:p:631-673
    DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2008.9521651
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10511482.2008.9521651
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10511482.2008.9521651?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony Pennington‐Cross & Giang Ho, 2010. "The Termination of Subprime Hybrid and Fixed‐Rate Mortgages," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 399-426, 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. Merrill, Craig B. & Nadauld, Taylor D. & Stulz, Rene M. & Sherlund, Shane, 2012. "Did Capital Requirements and Fair Value Accounting Spark Fire Sales in Distressed Mortgage-Backed Securities?," Working Papers 13-01, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    2. Morgan J. Rose, 2012. "Origination Channel, Prepayment Penalties and Default," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 40(4), pages 662-707, December.
    3. Reamonn Lyndon & Yvonne McCarthy, 2013. "What Lies Beneath? Understanding Recent Trends in Irish Mortgage Arrears," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 44(1), pages 117-150.
    4. Kathe Newman, 2010. "Go Public!," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(2), pages 160-171, April.
    5. Jevgenijs Steinbuks & Gregory Elliehausen, 2014. "The Economic Effects of Legal Restrictions on High-Cost Mortgages," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 47-72, July.
    6. Patrick Bajari & Chenghuan Sean Chu & Minjung Park, 2008. "An Empirical Model of Subprime Mortgage Default From 2000 to 2007," NBER Working Papers 14625, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Marsha J. Courchane & Leonard C. Kiefer & Peter M. Zorn, 2015. "A Tale of Two Tensions: Balancing Access to Credit and Credit Risk in Mortgage Underwriting," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 43(4), pages 993-1034, November.
    8. Epouhe, Onesime & Hall, Arden, 2016. "Payment shock in HELOCs at the end of the draw period," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 131-147.
    9. Gerardi Kristopher & Willen Paul, 2009. "Subprime Mortgages, Foreclosures, and Urban Neighborhoods," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 1-37, March.
    10. deRitis, Cristian & Kuo, Chionglong & Liang, Yongping, 2010. "Payment shock and mortgage performance," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 295-314, December.
    11. Mundra, Kusum, 2013. "Minority and Immigrant Homeownership Experience: Evidence from the 2009 American Housing Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 7131, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Goodman, Allen C. & Smith, Brent C., 2010. "Residential mortgage default: Theory works and so does policy," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 280-294, December.
    13. Giorgio Canarella & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller & Stephen K. Pollard, 2019. "Unemployment rate hysteresis and the great recession: exploring the metropolitan evidence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 61-79, January.
    14. Kristopher Gerardi & Lorenz Goette & Stephan Meier, 2010. "Financial literacy and subprime mortgage delinquency: evidence from a survey matched to administrative data," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2010-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    15. Kanis Saengchote & Krislert Samphantharak, 2020. "Delinquency Priority in Consumer Credit: Evidence from Thai Microdata," PIER Discussion Papers 135, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Haughwout, Andrew & Peach, Richard & Tracy, Joseph, 2008. "Juvenile delinquent mortgages: Bad credit or bad economy?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 246-257, September.
    17. Thomas P. Boehm & Alan M. Schlottmann, 2020. "Achieving Effective Mortgage Modifications: The Importance of Household Characteristics," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 151-182, August.
    18. W. Scott Frame & Lawrence J. White, 2009. "Technological change, financial innovation, and diffusion in banking," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2009-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    19. Andreas Fuster & Paul S. Willen, 2017. "Payment Size, Negative Equity, and Mortgage Default," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 167-191, November.
    20. Been, Vicki & Weselcouch, Mary & Voicu, Ioan & Murff, Scott, 2013. "Determinants of the incidence of U.S. Mortgage Loan Modifications," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 3951-3973.

    More about this item

    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:taf:houspd:v:19:y:2008:i:4:p:631-673. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RHPD20 .

    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.