Household Mobility and Mortgage Rate Lock
Working Paper 32781
DOI 10.3386/w32781
Issue Date
Rising interest rates can create “mortgage rate lock” for homeowners with fixed rate mortgages, who can hold onto their low rates as long as they stay in their homes but would have to take on new mortgages with higher rates if they moved. We show mobility rates fell in 2022 and 2023 for homeowners with mortgages, as market rates rose. We observe both absolute declines and declines relative to homeowners without mortgages, who are unaffected by mortgage rate lock. Mobility declines are not explained by changes in home values. Overall, our estimates imply that rising interest rates reduced mobility in 2022 and 2023 for households with mortgages by 16% and caused $20 billion of deadweight loss.
Non-Technical Summaries
- The traditional 30-year, fixed-rate, nonassumable mortgage used by most home buyers in the United States can create strong...