Abstract
The United States faced an ongoing foreclosure crisis in the late 2000s. Federal and state governments responded with public policies designed to reduce foreclosures. Such policies are economically appropriate if the cost to implement them is less than the negative private and public external effects of mortgage foreclosure. A hedonic home price regression calculates the value of these external effects for a large United States area (Sacramento, CA) hit particularly hard by the crisis over the period between January 2008 and June 2009.
The selling price of an average non-real estate owned homes, due to the presence of real estate owned sales of neighboring homes, fell by $48,827 or 31.9 percent. This estimate of the external neighborhood effect far exceeds similar estimates from previous regression studies using data from before the late 2000s foreclosure crisis and likely justifies public intervention into the curtailment of a regional foreclosure crisis of this magnitude.