RESEARCH 平衡住房援助的可及性和防止欺诈

JPMorgan Chase Institute Take
 

A central question for any government assistance program is how to reach the people who need help as quickly as possible while also making sure that those who receive help actually needed it?

研究表明，不需要文件的抵押贷款延期计划在很大程度上被房主所利用.

Recent JPMorgan Chase Institute research 在抵押贷款延期的背景下研究了这个问题.¹ Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, 和《澳博官方网站app》为大多数房主提供了长达一年的担保² 如果他们在没有文件要求的情况下证明自己有与新冠病毒相关的困难，就可以获得付款减免. 使用行政抵押服务和支票账户数据, 我们几乎没有发现与该项目有关的道德风险的证据.

Borrowers using forbearance to miss mortgage payments had larger drops in income than other homeowners and experienced income changes similar to those who became delinquent without the protection of forbearance. In addition, borrowers in forbearance were more likely to have lost labor income and received unemployment benefits than borrowers not in forbearance. In fact, 我们观察到的那些领取直接存入失业保险的人, 84 percent were in forbearance and continuing to make their mortgage payments and only 1 percent were in forbearance but missing mortgage payments. In other words, almost all of those who received UI and signed up for forbearance continued to make mortgage payments when they were able to.³ (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Those who lost their jobs and were receiving unemployment insurance overwhelmingly opted into forbearance but did not use it.

In contrast, 经济大衰退时期的项目有严格的文件要求，但接受度很低.

During the Great Recession, 旨在帮助陷入困境的房主的项目要求提供大量文件. 此后的研究表明，这些要求阻碍了许多此类项目的成功. The Hardest Hit Fund (HHF) was established in 2010 to offer mortgage payment assistance for unemployed or underemployed homeowners. 截至2016年底，只有29.2万名房主受益于HHF. The Home Affordable Unemployment Program (UP) was introduced in 2010 to provide assistance to unemployed homeowners who were unable to make their mortgage payments. 截至2016年底，只有46,485名房主参加了UP计划.⁴ Similarly, 住房负担得起的修改计划(HAMP)等抵押贷款修改计划的使用率也很低. 从2009年3月到2010年6月，约有55%(近675人),000) of HAMP trial modifications were cancelled because homeowners could not provide the requisite income verification documentation.⁵ By April 2015, more than one million homeowners had been denied a HAMP modification because they did not provide the financial and/or hardship verification documentation required to complete the evaluation of their request in a timely manner.⁶ Finally, 研究表明，在此期间，与再融资计划相关的类似要求(e.g., 住房可负担再融资计划(Home Affordable Refinance Program)将贷款比例限制在50%以下. 因此，这些再融资项目对止赎率的影响不大.⁷

澳博官方网站app银行研究所的数据也显示，几乎没有证据表明房主出现了战略性违约

During the Great Recession, many homeowners were underwater and policymakers were worried about strategic default—the risk that homeowner would walk away from their debt obligation once the mortgage exceeded the value of their home. Evidence suggests, by and large, homeowners did not do this. 使用抵押服务和存款账户数据，JPMC研究所 research shows that for borrowers who defaulted on their mortgage, 违约紧随负收入冲击而来，无论他们的房屋净值水平如何. This was true even when the homeowner was deeply underwater.⁸ (图2)此结果与上面描述的简单类型的策略默认不一致. Ganong and Noel (2020), using JPMC Institute data, 将资不抵债的借款人与没有战略违约动机的群体进行比较:房屋净值为正的借款人. They find that only 3 percent of defaults are caused exclusively by negative equity and that adverse events are a necessary condition for 97 percent of mortgage defaults.⁹ This suggests that homeowners see their homes as more than a financial asset and place a high priority on being able to remain in their homes.

图2:违约对整个LTV分布的借款人产生负收入冲击, providing suggestive evidence against a simple model of strategic default where deeply underwater borrowers stop making mortgage payments only because they are underwater.

Renter assistance programs are fundamentally different from mortgage forbearance programs but may also see low take-up if documentation requirements are too onerous

JPMC Institute research has shown that compared to mortgage holders, renters were on weaker financial footing prior to the pandemic and experienced greater job losses and labor income declines during the pandemic. Furthermore, 尽管失业保险和经济福利检查的慷慨扩大增加了许多租房者的总收入, 超过五分之一的人的总收入下降了10%以上. Finally, renters entered the pandemic with much lower levels of savings and their relative position did not improve meaningfully during the pandemic despite government stimulus programs as they depleted more of the stimulus-generated additional savings by the end of the year than mortgage holders. Importantly, these results likely represent a “best case scenario” for renters since Institute data capture a sample of renters that skew higher in income. An analysis that includes more low-income renters—especially those that are underbanked or already struggling with housing payments—would likely show worse financial outcomes for renters.¹⁰ 这些结果表明，租房者需要某种形式的租房援助.

而租赁援助计划已经在一些特定的地方存在, the main form of rental assistance during the pandemic arrived in December 2020 with the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, 为州和地方政府建立了250亿美元的联邦紧急租赁援助计划. In order to apply for this program, 租房者被要求填写表格并上传证明失业或收入损失的文件, risk of homelessness or housing instability, 收入不超过地区收入中位数(AMI)的80%.¹¹ Such extensive requirements may, 类似于大衰退时期的住房援助计划, 导致许多租房者无法获得援助，因为他们无法证明自己的需要.g., they require assistance filling out the application forms, their income is difficult to document, etc.). It is worth acknowledging that rental assistance is fundamentally different from mortgage forbearance: rental assistance provides a transfer of money to renters, while forbearance is a deferral of a debt obligation. Additionally, 当涉及到住房支付时，租房者可能会表现出与房主不同的行为. That said, the research around moral hazard and uptake for mortgage forbearance and Great Recession-era housing programs is still instructive. As such, policymakers may consider revisiting whether the right balance between accessibility and fraud prevention has been found in rental assistance programs.