Liquidity Cost Premia

The purpose of the paper is to find out the borrowing cost premia for those individuals who are liquidity-constrained, or who are first-time buyers of real estate. The analysis uses the similarity of a leveraged purchase with the exercise of a call option to defer the purchase of the asset. Sensible parameters are selected for the option, and simulations are run to identify the cost premia. The main conclusion is that these borrowing costs are prohibitive in central tendency and in dispersion. This means that liquidity-constrained individuals may be given borrowing quotations, but these quoted rates are so high and variable that these individuals are unwilling to borrow.