NOW THAT’S WIERD
Borrowers who strategically default on their first mortgage often continue to pay on home equity lines of credit, according to a new white paper from two authors with the Philadelphia Federal Reserve.
The authors, Julapa Jagtiani and William W. Lang, said they wanted to take a closer look at the little-studied phenomenon of strategic default behavior as it relates to first- and second-lien mortgages. “Predicting mortgage losses has become more difficult with the increase in strategic default behavior and the increase in loan modifications,” the paper said.
“Focusing on mortgage defaults, our results indicate that the default rate for first mortgages far exceeded those of the second-lien mortgages during the financial crisis. This behavior was not observed in the pre-financial crisis period (i.e., the booming period of 2004-2006),” states Housing Wire.
About 20% of borrowers in the process of foreclosure due to defaults on the first mortgage kept their second-lien mortgage current. Among those who defaulted on their second-lien mortgages, about 80% also defaulted on their first-lien mortgage
