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Army of Mortgagors: Long-Run Evidence on Credit Externalities and the Housing Market

Author

Listed:
  • Tobias Herbst
  • Moritz Kuhn
  • Farzad Saidi
Abstract
Houses are the most important asset on American households’ balance sheets, rendering the U.S. economy sensitive to house prices. There is a consensus that credit conditions affect house prices, but to what extent remains controversial, as an expansion in credit supply often coincides with changes in house price expectations. To address this longstanding question, we rely on novel microdata on the universe of mortgages guaranteed under the Veterans Administration (VA) loan program. We use the expansion of eligibility of veterans for the VA loan program following the Gulf War to estimate a long-lived effect of credit supply on house prices. We then exploit the segmentation of the conventional mortgage market from program eligibility to link this sustained house price growth to developments in the initially unaffected segment of the credit market. We uncover a net increase in credit for all other residential mortgage applicants that aligns closely with the evolution of house price growth, which supports the view that credit-induced house price shocks are amplified by beliefs.

Suggested Citation

  • Tobias Herbst & Moritz Kuhn & Farzad Saidi, 2024. "Army of Mortgagors: Long-Run Evidence on Credit Externalities and the Housing Market," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_586, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2024_586
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    File URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp586
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    credit supply; mortgages; beliefs; house prices; veterans;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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