Mortgages in Real Estate

In recent years, many economists have recognized that the lack of effective real estate laws can be a significant barrier to investment in many developing countries. In most societies, rich or poor, a significant fraction of the total wealth is in the form of land and buildings. In most advanced economies, the main source of capital used by individuals and small companies to purchase and improve land and buildings is mortgage loans --bank loans for which the real property itself constitutes collateral. Banks are willing to make such loans at favorable rates in large part because, if the borrower does not make payments, the lender can foreclose by filing a court action that lets them take back the property and sell it to get their money back. But in many developing countries there is no effective means by which a lender could foreclose, so the mortgage loan industry, as such, either does not exist at all or is only available to members of privileged social classes.