Despite the "interest rate turnaround" initiated by the ECB in the second half of 2022 as a late reaction to the clearly underestimated persistence of high inflation rates in the euro area, real interest rates are by no means to be regarded as restrictive, neither in the ex post nor in the ex...

We study the effect of Department of Justice lawsuits in the 2010s against large lenders for alleged fraud in the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance program. The suits led to more than $5 billion in settlements and caused targeted banks and their peers to precipitously exit...

Using administrative data on mortgages issued in Italy between 2018 and 2019, this paper estimates loan demand elasticities to maturity and interest rate. We find that households are responsive to both contract terms: a 1% decrease in interest rate increases the average loan size by 0.22%...

The family home is the most important asset on household balance sheets, aside from human capital. Choosing a suitable mortgage is therefore critical to financial well-being but households often make costly mistakes. We collect data in an online survey to test borrowers' comfort with, and...

Die letzten Jahre waren äußerst turbulent und stellten auch einen Stresstest für die Immobilienfinanzierung dar. In dem vorliegenden Beitrag ist dabei die Entwicklung in Deutschland international eingeordnet worden. Darüber hinaus ist eine zentrale Voraussetzung für Festzinssysteme - die...

We study the two-way relationship between fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) and monetary policy in a panel of up to 35 countries over the last two decades. The dataset includes quarterly information on the composition of mortgage flows and stock by type of rate-fixation and monetary policy shocks...

The outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic has caused some disruption to the real estate market in Vietnam. To survive the Covid-19 pandemic, real estate businesses have rushed to find alternative solutions, proactively approach support packages, and change business strategies. Moreover, the real...

Die Nachfrage der österreichischen Privathaushalte nach Wohnbaukrediten stieg aufgrund der sinkenden Zinsen im ersten Quartal 2025 deutlich. Auch für das zweite Quartal 2025 erwarten die befragten Banken einen weiteren Anstieg der Kreditnachfrage. Im Gegensatz dazu sank die Kreditnachfrage der...

We empirically document deviations of residential real estate prices from fundamental values at the micro level and investigate their relationship with local bank lending growth during a period of unconventional monetary policy. Our findings indicate a positive relationship between credit growth...

This paper examines the impact of borrower-based macroprudential policy tightening on mortgage lending in Slovakia, focusing in particular on the role of financial advisors in shaping loan characteristics. Using a comprehensive loan-level dataset from Slovak banks, we analyze the effects of key...

We study whether and how EU banks comply with tighter macroprudential policy (MPP). Observing contractual details for more than one million securitized loans, we document an elusive risk-shifting response by EU banks in reaction to tighter loan-to-value (LTV) restrictions between 2009 and 2022....

This study explores the relationship between income growth and housing prices in Poland's seven largest cities from 2013 to 2024. Through statistical analysis, the research reveals a strong correlation between average gross wages, and both offer and transaction prices in the real estate market,...

In dynamic models of asset markets with asymmetric information and endogenous screening, the anticipation of signaling through delayed sales incentivizes originators to exert greater effort ex ante. A central prediction in those models is a positive relationship between screening effort and the...

This paper examines how homeownership status shapes attention to inflation and its impact on durable consumption. Using randomized controlled trials on U.S. households (2021-2023), we document systematic heterogeneity in responses to inflation-related information. Homeowners exhibit greater...

Aggregate consumption typically exceeds 60 per cent of GDP and should be pivotal in central bank policy models. Most use semi-structural macro-models, yet consumption is usually inadequately specified. We use a systems approach to estimate new equations for South African consumption, house...

This study examines racial and ethnic disparities in mortgage-lending outcomes across different lender types-large banks, fintech lenders, non-bank lenders, small banks, and credit unions-using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data from 2018 to 2023. By analyzing approval rates, rate spreads,...

Large-scale debt forbearance is a key policy tool during crises, yet targeting is challenging due to information asymmetries. Using transaction-level data from a Portuguese bank during COVID-19, we find that financially fragile households are more likely to enter forbearance, irrespective of...

Physical climate risks can have a large regional impact, which can influence mortgage loans' credit risk and should be priced by the lenders. Motivated by the relevance of climate change for financial intermediaries, our paper aims at analysing if physical climate risks are being reflected in...

Targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) helped supporting bank lending to firms and to households in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of TLTRO funding for mortgage loans to households had explicitly not been included into the targeted loan categories of these schemes,...

Almost half of mortgage lending to homeowners in Denmark consists of 30-year fixed-rate loans. The loans are callable, so homeowners can redeem their loan and take out a new one if, for example, they want to refinance at a lower rate if interest rates fall. We calculate a financial incentive for...

Housing markets are affected by a large variety of factors. Among them, governmental regulations play an important role. Besides desired effects, all these policies exert a number of side effects, some of which can even offset the desired effects. In addition, different policies can cancel out...

We study how intermediaries-mortgage servicers-shaped the implementation of mortgage forbearance during the COVID-19 pandemic and use servicer-level variation to trace out the causal effect of forbearance on borrowers. Forbearance provision varied widely across servicers. Small servicers and...

An oft-touted benefit of homeownership is the ability to build and access equity, and in recent years the amount of "tappable" home equity held by US homeowners has reached historic levels. But more than one-quarter of recent applications for mortgage equity withdrawal (MEW) loan products were...

Housing research is one of the hot topics in many countries. This paper provides a quick review of the housing economics research in the US, Sweden, Latvia, China, Corsica, and Italy published in this special issue. Bao and Shah studied the effects of home-sharing platforms in general and the...