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The Home Purchase Mortgage Preferences of Low‐ and Moderate‐Income Households
Author(s) -
LaCourLittle Michael
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
real estate economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.064
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1540-6229
pISSN - 1080-8620
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6229.2007.00190.x
Subject(s) - product (mathematics) , variation (astronomy) , low income , government (linguistics) , mortgage underwriting , economics , business , focus (optics) , demographic economics , public economics , mortgage insurance , actuarial science , linguistics , philosophy , physics , geometry , mathematics , casualty insurance , astrophysics , optics , insurance policy
Housing policy in the United States has long supported homeownership, yet variation persists across income groups. This article employs recent mortgage origination data to focus on the revealed preferences of low‐ and moderate‐income (LMI) households in home purchase mortgage choice. I identify the factors associated with conventional conforming, FHA, nonprime and specially targeted programs. Empirical results show that individual credit characteristics and financial factors, including pricing, generally drive product choice, with some variation evident when loans are originated through brokers. Results also indicate that targeted conventional programs effectively compete with government‐insured products in the LMI segment.