TY - JOUR T1 - Are Things Getting Better or Worse?<br/> <em>It Depends!</em> JF - The Journal of Structured Finance SP - 20 LP - 26 DO - 10.3905/jsf.2012.18.2.020 VL - 18 IS - 2 AU - Thomas Showalter Y1 - 2012/07/31 UR - https://pm-research.com/content/18/2/20.abstract N2 - This article references an analysis that describes the performance of a group of mortgage borrowers in 2009 using eight metrics: housing price depreciation, annual income, new revolving accounts, new mortgage accounts, cash velocity, problem debt percentage, resolution, and first lien foreclosure. Using these metrics, the study compares the borrowers’ 2009 performance with their 2011 performance. The purpose of the study was to evaluate how well the 2009 population was doing in 2011: Did they improve along key metrics or did they regress? And what might that mean? Again, conventional wisdom is off point. Although many have asserted that the property performance dictates, or at least profoundly influences, borrower default and foreclosure behavior, that just isn’t so. Events beyond property depreciation (or appreciation) are affecting borrower behavior and driving borrowers toward default. Events like ill health, reduction in income, and/or loss of job have had a profound effect on borrower default and foreclosure. These events produce a general state of distress that causes the borrower to fail to service many kinds of debt including and beyond mortgage debt.TOPICS: Performance measurement, fixed income and structured finance ER -