When Housing Markets Meet Shadow Banking: Bubbles, Mortgages, Securitization, And Fintech

Book excerpt: This book contends that the housing markets and shadow banking have been involved in a kind of 'dance' over the last two decades. It traces this dance to be between the roles of mortgage markets since the 1980s in both the US and China and the developments of securitization and 'shadow banks.' It gives side-by-side comparisons between the two and suggests that house price dynamics have been similar, but also quite different. Both had booms. The US had a bubble that burst around 2007 — after prices became quite high relative to rents and then crashed. However, Chinese housing markets, which had a similar run-up, did not have a burst bubble. Rather, the rising property values appear to have been from space becoming more valuable as reflected in rent growth. In the US, prices chased prices; in China, prices chased rents.Mortgage markets were more complicated, beginning with the securitization in the US, and the rise of shadow banks that both led and followed. The US used shadow banks to hold pieces of securitization deals and funded them with deposit-like debt. These pieces were fragile and their collapse caused 'silent runs,' which were instrumental in the ensuing crash. China's shadow banks were more like traditional intermediaries, unattached to securitization. Their liabilities were mostly not short-term, as was the case with US shadow banks. So, runs were not a problem, but getting the market to work efficiently was.The markets have evolved. And while the music has changed, the dance is not over.