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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

The sensitivity of housing demand to mortgage rates and available leverage is key to understanding the effect of monetary and macroprudential policies on the housing market. However, since there is generally no exogenous variation in these variables that is independent of confounding factors (such as economic conditions or household characteristics), it is difficult to cleanly estimate these sensitivities empirically. We circumvent these issues by designing a strategic survey in which respondents are asked for their willingness to pay (WTP) for a home comparable to their current one, under different financing scenarios. We vary mortgage rates, down payment constraints, and non-housing wealth. We find that a relaxation of down payment constraints, or an exogenous increase in non-housing wealth, has large effects on WTP, especially for relatively poorer and more credit-constrained borrowers. On the other hand, changing the mortgage rate by 2 percentage points only changes WTP by about 5 percent on average. These findings have implications for theoretical models of house price determination, as well as for policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Fuster & Basit Zafar, 2014. "The sensitivity of housing demand to financing conditions: evidence from a survey," Staff Reports 702, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:702
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    Cited by:

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    2. 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).
    3. Barney Hartman‐Glaser & Mark Thibodeau & Jiro Yoshida, 2023. "Cash to spend: IPO wealth and house prices," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(1), pages 68-102, January.
    4. 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.
    5. Matteo Benetton, 2017. "Lenders' Competition and Macro-prudential Regulation: A Model of the UK Mortgage Supermarket," 2017 Meeting Papers 1001, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. 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.
    7. Darius Kulikauskas, 2015. "Measuring fundamental housing prices in the Baltic States: empirical approach," ERES eres2015_31, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    8. Armantier, Olivier & Sbordone, Argia & Topa, Giorgio & van der Klaauw, Wilbert & Williams, John C., 2022. "A new approach to assess inflation expectations anchoring using strategic surveys," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(S), pages 82-101.
    9. Tukiainen, Janne & Blesse, Sebastian & Bohne, Albrecht & Giuffrida, Leonardo M. & Jääskeläinen, Jan & Luukinen, Ari & Sieppi, Antti, 2021. "What are the priorities of bureaucrats? Evidence from conjoint experiments with procurement officials," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-033, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. 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).
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Barasinska, Nataliya & Haenle, Philipp & Koban, Anne & Schmidt, Alexander, 2019. "Stress testing the German mortgage market," Discussion Papers 17/2019, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    14. Sjoerd Van Bekkum & Marc Gabarro & Rustom M. Irani & José-Luis Peydró, 2019. "Take It to the limit? The effects of household leverage caps," Economics Working Papers 1682, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Feb 2022.
    15. 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.).
    16. 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.
    17. Romauld Méango, 2023. "Identification of ex ante returns using elicited choice probabilities," Economics Series Working Papers 1007, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. Elliot Anenberg & Tess C. Scharlemann & Eileen van Straelen, 2023. "Borrowing and Spending in the Money: Debt Substitution and the Cash-out Refinance Channel of Monetary Policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-073, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. 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.
    20. 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).
    21. Adra, Samer & Menassa, Elie, 2022. "The Fed’s dual shocks and the housing market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    22. Awokuse, Titus & Chan, Nathan W. & González-Ramírez, Jimena & Gulati, Sumeet & Interis, Matthew G. & Jacobson, Sarah & Manning, Dale T. & Stolper, Samuel & Ando, Amy, 2023. "Environmental and Natural Resource Economics and Systemic Racism," RFF Working Paper Series 23-06, Resources for the Future.
    23. 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.).
    24. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    housing demand; mortgage rates; down payment requirements; user cost model; household surveys;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand

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