Alrov Institute for Real Estate Research

This paper presents a review and synthesis of recent research on mortgage relief programs in the United States and the United Kingdom, examining both preventive and reactive measures designed to mitigate default risks and support housing market stability. It examines theoretical, empirical, and regulatory perspectives to highlight how these initiatives operate across different policy dimensions, including payment relief and affordability, foreclosure avoidance, take-up and accessibility, redefault outcomes, and broader housing-market stabilization. By integrating evidence from historical downturns and post-COVID interest rate hikes, the paper identifies recurring strengths and limitations across different intervention types, regulatory tools, and policy contexts. Notably, it underscores the importance of stronger underwriting standards and broader access to long-term fixed-rate mortgages as structural features that can reduce default risk and strengthen market resilience before distress emerges. The analysis provids decision-makers with a comparative framework for evaluating mortgage relief strategies and for designing interventions that better protect vulnerable households while supporting housing-market stability.

This study examines the housing market resiliency from the unexpected I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota that occurred in August 2007. I rely on an event study and a difference-indifferences analysis to document a symmetric effect of house prices after versus before the shock, for houses sold close to the bridge. I consider various measures of highway access and direct proximity (i.e., exposure to disamenities) from the bridge, including a range of distance radii and distance bands. While there is evidence of significant drive time benefits to house prices from proximity, and significantly higher house prices that are further away from the bridge, these effects are no different after the reopening of the bridge than before the collapse. These robust results imply that the willingness to pay for houses near the bridge was resilient to the reopening of the bridge, contributing to the transportation resilience literature

Itai Ater, Yael Elster & Eran B. Hoffmann