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Credit History And The Performance Of Prime And Nonprime Mortgages, Anthony Pennington-Cross

Anthony Pennington-Cross

Although nonprime lending has experienced steady or even explosive growth over the last decade very little is known about the performance characteristics of these mortgages. Using data from national secondary market institutions, this paper estimates a competing risks proportional hazard model, which includes unobserved heterogeneity. The analysis examines the performance of 30-year fixed rate owner occupied home purchase mortgages from February 1995 to the end of 1999 and compares nonprime and prime loan default and prepayment behavior. Nonprime loans are identified by mortgage interest rates that are substantially higher than the prevailing prime rate. Results indicate that nonprime mortgages differ …