High Cost Lenders and the Geographic Concentration of Foreclosures

We define high cost lenders as lenders that issue a disproportionate number of high cost loans. We develop a shift-share measure to capture the market representation of these high cost lenders in housing submarkets. After conditioning on housing submarket fixed effects, origination year fixed effects and trends over origination years based on housing submarket attributes, the magnitude of the estimated relationship is very stable as detailed controls for borrower attributes, credit score and loan terms are added. The relationship between the representation of high cost lenders and foreclosure is broad based across borrowers and types of loans, but is strongest for loans originated by high cost lenders whether or not the loans themselves are high cost. We investigate three potential mechanisms: reverse causality where high cost lenders respond to an increase in demand from higher risk borrowers, the types of mortgages issued when high cost lenders increase their market presence, and the behavior of loan servicers when a cohort of loans contains a large number of loans issued by high cost lenders. While we do not have direct information on loan servicers, our evidence points towards foreclosure decisions during the crisis as the primary mechanism behind our findings.