Assignment title: Information
Question 1: Collateralized Mortgage Obligations (40 points)
Consider the following Collateralized Mortgage Obligations (CMOs) with three classes of
securities, Tranche A, Tranche B and Tranche Z.
Assets
10-year, 11% fixed rate Mortgages = $75,000,000
Overcollateralization = $3,000,000
Tranche Stated maturity Coupon Rate Amount Issued
A 4 years 9% $27,000,000
B 5 years 10% $15,000,000
Z 10 years 11% $30,000,000
All cash flows are annual.
It is expected that the mortgage pool will experience constant prepayment rate of either 0%
or 10% per year depending on the mortgage interest rate level.
a. Determine the market value of Tranche A, B, and Z securities if the mortgage interest
rate tomorrow after the issue of the securities increases to 15%.
b. Determine the market value of Tranche A, B, and Z securities if the mortgage interest
rate tomorrow after the issue of the securities decreases to 6%.
Question 2: Pre-Sale Market Analysis (30 points)
Consider the supply decision of MFIN Limited, a residential real estate developer facing
future price uncertainty. Let q be the number of residential units to be built. The variable
cost C(q) is equal to c/2 * q2. The fixed cost of construction is equal to B.
The developer can pre-sell some units (h) in the presale market at price pf today and sell the
rest of the supply quantity (q - h) at the spot market price at the end of the construction
period. The presale revenue generated will be held as cash only with zero rate of return.
The future spot price is uncertain and is represented by as follows:
= p +
where p is the expected (mean) future spot price and is the forecast error which has mean
equal to zero and variance equal to p2. That is,
E() = p and Var() = 2.
The developer is risk averse with the degree of risk aversion given by s .
(a) Determine the optimal supply quantity q * and the optimal pre-sale quantity h * .
Now consider the demand side of the market with a representative short-term investor
facing the same market conditions as MFIN Limited. The investor, like the MFIN Limited, is
risk averse with degree of risk aversion given by b . Similarly, the investor determines the
optimal pre-sale demand quantity (q b ) by maximizing the certainty-equivalent profit with
respect to the expected future spot price.
(b) Determine the optimal demand quantity (q b *).
(c) What is the market-clearing pre-sale price today?
Question 3: Real Estate Bubble (30 points)
2k s maurice tse
Following our discussion on stochastic rational bubble in the Hong Kong property market
(from slide 34 onward), repeat the same analysis for year 2014 and 2015 by looking up the
relevant data from the Census and Statistics Department web site or other sources.
(a) Evaluate the size of "bubble" for 2014 and 2015.
(b) How likely the real estate bubble will burst in 2016?
(c) How likely the real estate bubble will burst in the next two years, 2017 and 2018?