Frictions in the mortgage market have restricted the ability of tens of millions of borrowers from refinancing their mortgages, hampering monetary policy, slowing the economic recovery, and leading to excessive numbers of foreclosures. We propose a streamlined refinancing program that may benefit up to 30 million borrowers with government-backed mortgages, leading to possible savings of $70 billion per year in lower mortgage payments. Below we describe the current barriers to refinancings, how our plan would overcome these barriers, and why this plan is in the interest of taxpayers, the GSEs, and other mortgage service providers. We also discuss possible critiques and implementation issues and how such issues can be addressed.
Read the paper "Streamlined Refinancings for up to 30 Million Borrowers- (pdf)
CBO Analysis Strengthens Case for Major Refinancing Program - (pdf)
Stimulation results supporting our policy estimates - (Excel)
Mortgage savings by state - (Excel)