The Mortgage Market as a Stimulus Channel in the COVID-19 Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic mortgage forbearance programs are valuable, providing relief to approximately 2 million homeowners. At the same time, aggressive Federal Reserve intervention has decreased mortgage rates substantially, encouraging refinancing. However, mortgage rates remain elevated, as the industry is capacity constrained, and mortgage underwriting has become more restrictive, limiting the potential gains to borrowers from the Fed’s actions. This article proposes a streamlined refinance program for Federal mortgages. We estimate the impact of this program, showing that it would reduce mortgage defaults by allowing approximately 3 million families to refinance, who would otherwise be unable to do so because of tight underwriting requirements. It would also provide a further stimulus of $53 billion per year to the economy.