Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mortgage Default In Southern California: Examining Distressed Borrower's Decision Making And Market Contagion, Michael Wilkerson

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on mortgage defaults in Southern California during the housing bubble of the 2000s. The rapid decline in the housing market that precipitated the current recession has been accompanied by an unprecedented number of loan defaults and foreclosures. Recent studies have identified two major theories of default--the "double trigger" hypothesis, where negative equity and an income shock are necessary conditions for default--and "strategic default" where negative equity is a sufficient condition for default. This paper adds to the default literature by adding short sale as another possible outcome of mortgage default.

The primary goal is to analyze the …