Demand for housing loans and interest rates in Russian regions

Abstract

This work examines the current world experience in assessing the sensitivity of household mortgage borrowing to interest rates. The data of the “bank— region—year” format are used to estimate supply and demand equations for housing loans issued by banks in the regions of the country in 2015—2018. Our estimations have revealed that the demand on the mortgage market in the regions is sensitive to the price of loans: when weighted average rate at which a bank issues mortgages in a region is lower by 1 percentage point it is associated with an increase in demand up to 20—25%, all other things being equal, that is, when taking into account the number of offices of a bank in that region, the economic situation and region’s characteristics in that year. Demand for mortgages is elastic at interest rates, which means that by lowering rates on mortgage programs, banks can expect an increase in demand, due both to an increase in overall demand for loans and to an overflow of borrowers from other banks. Consequently, it was confirmed that high interest rates on mortgages hinder the development of housing lending.