Author: Gregory Connor

Composition Effects and Loan-to-Value Limits

The Irish Central Bank is scheduled to introduce new macro-prudential risk controls on Irish mortgage lending, with the new regulations taking effect on January 1st or soon thereafter. One of the regulations will limit most new mortgages to an initial loan-to-value ratio of 80% or less. There has been considerable discussion of the effect of loan-to-value limits on potential property purchasers, but the analysis has been very poorly framed.

The budgeting scenario has been described as follows:

“Consider a couple who wish to purchase a €300,000 property. With a LTV limit of 80% this will require that they save €60,000 for the down payment whereas if they were allowed to borrow 85% they would only need savings of €45,000.”

This oft-repeated budgeting scenario misrepresents the nature of market-wide LTV limits imposed by the Central Bank. This budgeting scenario gives the impression that the policy decision is about imposing/not imposing the LTV constraint on only one particular buyer rather than market-wide. It misses the large compositional effects since leveraged property buyers compete with one another for properties. The degree of leverage allowed in the banking system feeds into property prices, and this affects the opportunity set of purchasers.

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NYTimes Op-Ed on Mortgage Limits in the USA

There is an interesting New York Times Op-Ed article relevant to the proposed Irish Central Bank LTV and LTI caps on residential mortgages. US financial regulators attempted to impose very similar caps, but the caps have now been diluted/dropped in response to political pressure.

The article is behind the NYTimes paywall, but a number of articles can be read per month without paying a subscription. A key quote:

“low underwriting standards — especially low down payments — drive housing prices up, making them less affordable for low- and moderate-income buyers, while also inducing would-be homeowners to take more risk.”

Question on measuring foreign risk capital inflows during the Irish financial sector recovery

One of the key drivers behind the better-than-expected recovery of the Irish financial sector has been the strong inflow of foreign risk capital, particularly from U.S. “vulture funds” as they are inaptly named. This healthy demand for Irish banking assets has allowed the PCAR and PLAR plans for the domestic banks, and the unwinding of NAMA, to progress successfully. Similarly healthy demand for the Irish assets of foreign banks, such as Irish loan portfolios sold by Ulster Bank, has also contributed indirectly to the Irish financial sector’s partial recovery.
There is a risk capital inflow when a foreign institution buys a troubled loan portfolio or property portfolio from an Irish bank, or from an Irish subsidiary of a foreign bank, or from Nama. These risk capital inflows are not intermediated through the Irish banks and do not appear on their balance sheets. Prof. Brian O’Kelly (DCU) and I were able to trace the 2000-2009 destabilizing inflow and sudden outflow of foreign credit into the Irish banking sector using the aggregate Irish banking sector balance sheet Table A4.1 published by the Irish Central Bank. Question: how can one measure this new source of risk capital inflows? It seems healthy and stabilizing rather than (like in 2000-2009) unhealthy and destabilizing, but it still deserves to be measured accurately. Is it necessary to list all the individual deals and add them up? Has some hardworking analyst done that already? Is it possible to create a quarterly or annual time series? Answers on a postcard (or better on a spreadsheet) are welcome!

The Irish Case for LTV and LTI Caps on New Mortgage Lending

The Irish Central Bank discussion paper on macro-prudential policy tools published yesterday seems to be a trial balloon for possible caps on Loan-to-Income (LTI) and Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratios for new residential property mortgages in Ireland. The general theory behind imposing these limits is laid out clearly in that document; there is no reason to repeat it here. I want to discuss some notable features of the Irish environment which strengthen the case for these caps (but do not make the decision easy).

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Conference on Financial Crises: Transmission and Consequences

Maynooth University Department of Economics, Finance and Accounting in association with FMC2 (Financial Mathematics and Computation Research Cluster) are hosting a one-day conference on Financial Crises: Transmission and Consequences on Wednesday, September 24 in Renehan Hall, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co.Kildare.

The event brings together leading international and domestic experts on financial crises, contagion and banking. The full programme of speakers and presentations is shown below. We invite you to join us in Maynooth. Registration is free, but please confirm your attendance by emailing: thomas.flavin@nuim.ie. The conference programme is shown below the fold.

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