Financing the Danish home

There is a surprising (to me at least) variety of ways that countries address the common problem of financing the purchase of residential property. To date, I have mostly approached the question from the perspective of trying to understand differences in mortgage risk weights across different banks in Australia (see here). The topic also has implications for cross border comparisons of capital adequacy ratios (see here and here).

Marc Rubinstein wrote a great piece looking at the mysteries of the the 30-year fixed-rate fully prepayable mortgage that finances the majority of home purchases in America. Marc noted in passing that Denmark is the only other country that offers a comparable form of mortgage financing. That is broadly true but I think the Danish mortgage financing system has some distinct and intriguing features of its own. A paper published by the New York Fed in 2018 comparing the US and Danish mortgage systems has been especially useful in gaining some deeper insights into the different ways that countries solve the residential property finance challenge.

This extract from the New York Fed paper gives you a flavour of the history and main features of the Danish system

In Denmark, mortgage lending has long been dominated by specialized mortgage banks. Denmark’s first mortgage bank was established in 1797, and Nykredit, the country’s largest mortgage bank today, traces its origins to 1851 (Møller and Nielsen 1997). Originally, these firms were set up as mutual mortgage credit associations with a local focus. But several waves of mergers—some encouraged or even prescribed by their then-regulator—led to the formation of the handful of large mortgage banks that today dominate mortgage lending in Denmark.

Because the original mortgage credit associations were founded by borrowers, lending terms were to a large extent designed to reflect borrowers’ objectives and interests. At the same time, the associations needed to build trust among the investors in covered bonds, and this led to a business model aimed at balancing borrower and investor interests (Møller and Nielsen 1997).

Key aspects of this business model included:

# Mortgage lenders could not call for early redemption of a loan unless the borrower became delinquent.

# Investors could not call the covered bonds.

# Homeowners had a right to prepay the mortgage loan at par on any payment day without penalty.

# Homeowners were personally liable for the mortgage debt.

# Homeowners were jointly and severally liable for the covered bonds issued by the mortgage credit association.

# Mortgage margins could be increased for the entire stock of mortgage loans—for example, if needed in order to increase capitalization or cover loan losses.

# Strict lending guidelines were instituted that were regulated by law (maximum LTV ratio, maximum maturity, and so forth).

With the exception of joint and several liability, these principles still apply to mortgage banks today.

Berg J, Baekmand Nielsen M, and Vickery J, “Peas in a Pod? Comparing the U.S. and Danish Mortgage Financing Systems”, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review 24, no. 3, December 2018

The paper summarises the comparison between the two systems as follows

The U.S. and Danish mortgage finance models both rely heavily on capital markets to fund residential mortgages, transferring interest rate and prepayment risk, but not credit risk, to investors. But in Denmark, homeowners can buy back their mortgages or transfer them in a property sale, avoiding the “lock-in” effects present in the U.S. system, and easier refinancing reduces defaults and speeds the transmission of lower interest rates in a downturn. Denmark’s tighter underwriting standards and strong creditor protections help limit credit losses, while its higher capital requirements make lenders more stable.

Worth reading.

Tony – From the Outside