Dearer loans affect house prices

Robert J. Shiller, Project Syndicate

Interest rates around the world are poised to rise. Short-term rates have gone so low since the worldwide recession of 2001 -- 1 percent and 2 percent, respectively, in the United States and the Eurozone, and practically zero in Japan -- that a strengthening world economy will force central banks to tighten the monetary reins.

Australia's central bank has already been raising rates since May 2002, and Great Britain's since November 2003.

In the U.S., the two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting on June 29-30 is likely to mark a major turning point, reversing the steady decline of the benchmark federal funds rate since Alan Greenspan began loosening monetary policy in 2001. This is likely to be followed by rate increases in China, the Eurozone, and elsewhere.

Given the tendency of central banks to change interest rates gradually, any change of direction likely means more changes in the same direction later. What will this landmark change mean for prices of such assets as stocks and homes?

In theory, when interest rates go up, there is reason to believe that asset prices will go down. The higher interest rates go, the better are investments in bonds, which compete with investments in other assets such as stocks or homes.

Higher interest rates also raise the cost of borrowing to buy these assets, which may diminish demand for them, exerting downward pressure on their prices. When interest rates fall, the opposite effect on asset prices may be predicted.

In fact, the history of the stock market's reactions to changing interest rates is mixed. Sometimes interest rate changes have the predicted effect, sometimes they don't.

By contrast, the Fed is widely expected to raise rates at the end this month, so there will be no surprise element. The market may know, not just from the experience of 2001-2002, that interest rate movements do not have predictable effects on stock prices.

But, there are reasons to believe that higher interest rates, even though expected, can have a negative impact on home prices. That is because home buyers are mostly ordinary people with little financial sophistication, unlike the professionals who trade in stocks. Untrained people with other things on their minds can make serious economic errors.

Home values have soared to high levels in many countries as irrational exuberance grips the markets. High home prices are already putting great stress on many families, which are struggling to make their mortgage payments. When interest rates go up, these payments will (when the rate is variable) also go up, possibly becoming unsustainable.

If one borrows the equivalent of three years' income to buy a house, a mortgage rate of 6 percent means that 18 percent of one's income goes to interest payments, which may be tolerable. But if the rate rises to 8 percent, mortgage interest payments rise to 24 percent, which, together with amortization, taxes, other debts, and necessary expenditures, may claim too much of the family budget. Some will then try to sell their overpriced homes, and the resulting market imbalance will cause prices to fall.

People with fixed-rate mortgages are also vulnerable to rate increases, though less directly. This is because if they have to move and sell their house, there may be no buyers who can afford higher interest payments, unless the home's price also falls.

By contrast, sophisticated investors, such as big stock market players, are unlikely to fall prey to this trap. But homebuyers are not as savvy, so they may not see the change coming or they may fail to plan for it.

As psychologists have shown, people are susceptible to "wishful thinking bias," wishing away possible future problems that they would rather not think about. They may overemphasize the likelihood of economic success ("I will be making a lot more money in a few years") and underemphasize the commonplace problems that regularly challenge family budgets ("I will be losing my job or getting a divorce").

This blithe attitude is ultimately behind real estate bubbles where they are occurring. Low interest rates did not cause the bubbles. They only made it easier for people, in those areas of the world where there is a half-believable story about a fabulous future economy, to indulge their fantasies. Interest rate increases will deliver a fresh dose of reality: The interest expense of owning a home is going to claim a larger share of family budgets, a hard fact that will eventually sink into our thinking.

But declines in home prices will not occur quickly when central banks begin to raise interest rates. After two years of rate increases, Australia's home price boom only recently shows signs of abating. Dominated by amateur investors, home markets do not turn on a dime. In places where home prices have been rising rapidly, the upward trend may continue or level off for a while. In most high-priced places, a real decline may not come for some time.

The writer is Professor of Economics at Yale University, and author of Irrational Exuberance and The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century.