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The Sensitivity of Housing Demand to Financing Conditions: Evidence from a Survey

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  • Andreas Fuster
  • Basit Zafar

Abstract

Measuring the sensitivity of housing demand to mortgage rates and available leverage is challenging because there is generally no exogenous variation in these variables. This paper circumvents this issue by designing a strategic survey in which respondents report their willingness to pay (WTP) for a home under different financing scenarios. Relaxation of down payment constraints or an exogenous increase in nonhousing wealth has large effects on WTP, especially for poorer and more credit-constrained households. However, changing the mortgage rate has only moderate effects on WTP. These findings have implications for theoretical models of house price determination and for policy.

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  • Andreas Fuster & Basit Zafar, 2021. "The Sensitivity of Housing Demand to Financing Conditions: Evidence from a Survey," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 231-265, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:13:y:2021:i:1:p:231-65
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20150337
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    2. Romuald Meango, 2023. "Identification of Ex Ante Returns Using Elicited Choice Probabilities," Papers 2303.03009, arXiv.org.
    3. Elliot Anenberg & Aurel Hizmo & Edward Kung & Raven S. Molloy, 2017. "Measuring Mortgage Credit Availability : A Frontier Estimation Approach," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-101, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
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    5. Barasinska, Nataliya & Haenle, Philipp & Koban, Anne & Schmidt, Alexander, 2019. "Stress testing the German mortgage market," Discussion Papers 17/2019, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    6. Kelly, Robert & O'Malley, Terence & O'Toole, Conor, 2015. "Designing Macro-prudential Policy in Mortgage Lending: Do First Time Buyers Default Less?," Research Technical Papers 02/RT/15, Central Bank of Ireland.
    7. Matteo Benetton, 2017. "Lenders' Competition and Macro-prudential Regulation: A Model of the UK Mortgage Supermarket," 2017 Meeting Papers 1001, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Koeniger, Winfried & Lennartz, Benedikt & Ramelet, Marc-Antoine, 2022. "On the transmission of monetary policy to the housing market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
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    10. Matteo Benetton, 2021. "Leverage Regulation and Market Structure: A Structural Model of the U.K. Mortgage Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 2997-3053, December.
    11. Davis, Morris A. & Oliner, Stephen D. & Peter, Tobias J. & Pinto, Edward J., 2020. "The Impact of Federal Housing Policy on Housing Demand and Homeownership: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    12. Tom Cusbert, 2023. "The Effect of Credit Constraints on Housing Prices: (Further) Evidence from a Survey Experiment," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2023-01, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    13. DeFusco, Anthony A. & Nathanson, Charles G. & Zwick, Eric, 2022. "Speculative dynamics of prices and volume," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 205-229.
    14. Van Bekkum, Sjoerd & Gabarró, Marc & Irani, Rustom & Peydró, José-Luis, 2019. "Take It to the Limit? The Effects of Household Leverage Caps," EconStor Preprints 216797, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    15. Anthony A. DeFusco & Andrew Paciorek, 2017. "The Interest Rate Elasticity of Mortgage Demand: Evidence from Bunching at the Conforming Loan Limit," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 210-240, February.
    16. Neil Bhutta & Daniel R. Ringo, 2017. "The Effect of Interest Rates on Home Buying : Evidence from a Discontinuity in Mortgage Insurance Premiums," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-086, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Lake, A., 2020. "Behavioural Finance at Home: Testing Deviations of House Prices from their Fundamental Values," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 20104, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    18. Darius Kulikauskas, 2015. "Measuring fundamental housing prices in the Baltic States: empirical approach," ERES eres2015_31, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    19. Tracey, Belinda & Van Horen, Neeltje, 2021. "The consumption response to borrowing constraints in the mortgage market," Bank of England working papers 919, Bank of England.
    20. Romauld Méango, 2023. "Identification of ex ante returns using elicited choice probabilities," Economics Series Working Papers 1007, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

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