3 posts on "homeowners"
May 6, 2024
Mortgage Rate Lock‑In and Homeowners’ Moving Plans
The U.S. housing market has had a tumultuous few years. After falling to record lows during the pandemic, the average 30-year mortgage rate rapidly increased in 2022 and 2023 and now hovers near a two-decade high of 7.2 percent. For those that locked in a low mortgage rate prior to 2022, this steep increase has significantly increased the cost of moving, as taking out a mortgage at current rates would potentially increase their monthly housing payment by hundreds or thousands of dollars, even if the amount they borrowed remained unchanged. As shown by Ferreira et al. (2011), this lock-in effect has the potential to reduce geographic mobility and turnover in the housing market and has gained the attention of Federal Reserve leaders. In this post, we utilize special questions from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s 2023 and 2024 SCE Housing Surveys to estimate the extent to which mortgage rate lock-in is suppressing U.S. household’s moving plans.
March 10, 2023
Is Your Apartment Breaking because Your Landlord Is Broke?
Thirty-one percent of housing units in the United States are rental units, and rental housing is unique because unlike in the case of homeownership, renters rely on the property owner for maintenance spending. From the property owner’s perspective, building maintenance is an important investment necessary to keep the asset in good condition. However, like all investments, it is only possible to maintain a building with sufficient financial resources. In a recent staff report, I examine the relationship between a building’s financing constraints and its maintenance. I find that financially constrained buildings, colloquially “broke,” tend to be less well maintained.
April 12, 2021
How COVID‑19 Affected First‑Time Homebuyers
Efforts in the spring of 2020 to contain the spread of COVID-19 resulted in a sharp contraction in U.S. economic growth and an unprecedented, rapid rise in unemployment. While the first wave of the pandemic slowed the spring housing market, home sales rebounded sharply over the rest of the year, with strong gains in house prices. Given the rising house prices and continuing high unemployment, concerns arose that COVID-19 may have negatively affected first-time homebuyers. Using a new and more accurate measure of first-time homebuyers, we find that these buyers have not been adversely affected by the pandemic. At the same time, gains from lower mortgage rates have gone to existing homeowners and not to households purchasing their first home.
Posted at 7:00 am in Credit, Household Finance, Housing, Pandemic, Unemployment | Permalink | Comments (1)
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