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How Closely Related Are Historical Mortgage Rates and Housing Prices?

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Growth in US home price by state Part 1 of 3
Housing Prices and Inflation Part 2 of 3
Mortgage Rates vs House Prices Part 3 of 3

How to use: Arrows on side of slides navigate between mortgage rate & house price data at the same point in time, and data with a two year house price lag.

Scatterplot showing the relationship between historical mortgage rates and house prices at the same point in time.
Scatterplot showing the relationship between historical mortgage rates and house prices with a 2 year house price lag.
Historical Mortgages Rates vs House Prices_Same Point in Time_Main
Historical Mortgage Rates vs House Prices_Two Years Later_Main
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Scatterplot showing the relationship between historical mortgage rates and house prices

This infographic is available as a poster.

Are Historical Mortgage Rates and House Prices Related?

Mortgage rates are rising at their fastest pace in at least 30 years. As mortgage rates climb, it becomes more expensive to finance a home purchase. This leaves many homebuyers with lower budgets. Could house prices drop as a result?

In this Markets in a Minute from New York Life Investments, we explore the relationship between historical mortgage rates and housing prices over the last 30 years. It’s the last in a three-part series on house prices.

Historical Mortgage Rates vs Housing Prices

To compare trends in historical mortgage rates and housing prices over time, we calculated year-over-year percentage changes. We used monthly data spanning from January 1992 to June 2022. Here’s a summary of movements over that timeframe.

Scenario# of Months
Mortgage Rate Decline, House Price Growth193
Mortgage Rate Growth, House Price Growth117
Mortgage Rate Decline, House Price Decline49
Mortgage Rate Growth, House Price Decline6

November 2006 has been excluded from the above tally as year-over-year mortgage rate growth was 0.0% at that time.

Mortgage rates and house prices have a weak positive correlation of 0.26. This means that when mortgage rates increase, house prices typically also increase. What could be contributing to this trend? Mortgage rate increases are associated with periods when the Federal Reserve is raising its policy rate in response to inflation that is higher than desired. Often, this coincides with strong economic growth, low unemployment, and rising wages, which can all strengthen home prices.

Over the last 30 years, it was quite rare for mortgage rates to rise while house prices simultaneously dropped. This only occurred in the early stages of the Global Financial Crisis and during the recovery.

DateMortgage Rate YoY ChangeHouse Price YoY Change
Aug 20070.8%-0.6%
Oct 20071.1%-1.9%
Jan 20101.6%-2.9%
Apr 20106.3%-1.5%
May 20103.3%-1.4%
Jul 20110.4%-3.8%

While mortgage rates saw some upward movement in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, it took the housing market longer to recover. In fact, housing prices didn’t see a positive year-over-year change until March 2012.

Is There a Lag Effect?

A change in mortgage rates may not be immediately reflected in housing prices. To test whether there was a lag effect, we also explored the relationship between historical mortgage rates and housing prices two years later.* For instance, we compared the annual percentage change in mortgage rates in 2020 to housing price growth in 2022.

Here’s what the data looked like with this two year lag of housing price growth.

Scenario# of Months
Mortgage Rate Decline, House Price Growth190
Mortgage Rate Growth, House Price Growth97
Mortgage Rate Decline, House Price Decline37
Mortgage Rate Growth, House Price Decline17

*We tested for a lag effect using house prices six months later, one year later, two years later, and three years later. The data using house prices 6 months later and three years later revealed no correlation between mortgage rates and housing prices. The data using house prices one year later revealed the same correlation as using house price data from two years later. November 2006 has been excluded from the above tally as year-over-year mortgage rate growth was 0.0% at that time.

The pattern was similar, albeit with a slightly negative correlation of -0.15. In other words, mortgage rates and house prices tended to move in opposite directions.

For example, this occurred in 2020 when mortgage rates were dropping and the Federal Reserve had not yet begun to raise its policy rate. Two years later in 2022, house prices were seeing record high levels of growth amid strong demand and low supply.

Compared to our first analysis above, there were also more instances where mortgage rates increased and house prices decreased. This activity all related to mortgage rates rising from 2005-2007 amid inflation concerns, with housing prices crashing in the following years due to subprime mortgages and the Global Financial Crisis.

Historical Mortgage Rates: One Piece of the Puzzle

Could the current rising mortgage rates cause housing prices to drop? In the last 30 years, there is no historical precedent for this apart from the Global Financial Crisis. Of course, subprime mortgages—mortgages to people with impaired credit scores—contributed to the housing market collapse at that time.

While researchers believe it’s unlikely housing price growth will turn negative, the pace of growth is slowing down. We can see this in the below chart showing trends between historical mortgage rates and housing prices over time.

Changes in historical mortgage rates and house prices over time. When the year-over-year mortgage rate changes has been above 20% for more than two months in a row, the pace of house price growth has slowed.

Historically, a slowdown in house price growth has occurred when mortgage rates increase rapidly. Since 1992, there have been four instances when mortgage rates rose over 20% year-over-year for more than two months in a row. Each of them has been accompanied by a deceleration in house price growth.

Time PeriodHouse Price YoY Change at StartHouse Price YoY Change at End
Sep 1994-Feb 19953.1%2.9%
Aug 2013-May 20147.2%4.7%
Sep 2018-Dec 20185.8%5.5%
Jan 2022-Jun 202218.4%16.2%

Note: House price data only available until June 2022 and does not reflect any fluctuations since that time.

In the first half of 2022, house price growth slowed by over two percentage points. However, it’s important to keep in mind that while mortgage rates and affordability can play a role in the housing market, there are other factors at play. The current market is buoyed by high demand as millennials reach their prime home buying years, coupled with a housing supply shortage.

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Markets in a Minute

The Average American’s Financial Portfolio by Account Type

From retirement plans to bank accounts, we show the percentage of an American’s financial portfolio that is typically held in each account.

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The Average American’s Financial Portfolio by Account Type

Where does the average American put their money? From retirement plans to banks, the typical financial portfolio includes a variety of accounts.

In this graphic from Morningstar, we explore what percentage of a person’s money is typically held within each account.

Breaking Down a Typical Financial Portfolio

People put the most money in employer retirement plans, which make up nearly two-fifths of the average financial portfolio. Bank accounts, which include checking, savings, and CDs, hold the second-largest percentage of people’s money.

Account Type% of Financial Portfolio
Employer retirement plan38%
Bank account23%
Brokerage/investment account14%
Traditional IRA10%
Roth IRA7%
Crypto wallet/account4%
Education savings account3%
Other1%

Source: Morningstar Voice of the Investor Report 2024, based on 1,261 U.S. respondents.

Outside of employer retirement plans and bank accounts, the average American keeps nearly 40% of their money in accounts that advisors typically help manage. For instance, people also hold a large portion of their assets in investment accounts and IRAs.

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Account Insight for Advisors

Given the large focus on retirement accounts in financial portfolios, advisors can clearly communicate how they will help investors achieve their retirement goals. Notably, Americans say that funding retirement accounts is a top financial goal in the next three years (39% of people), second only to reducing debt (40%).

Americans also say that building an emergency fund is one of their financial goals (35%), which can be supported by the money they hold in bank accounts. However, it can be helpful for advisors to educate clients on the lower return potential of savings accounts and CDs. In comparison, advisors can highlight that investment or retirement accounts can hold assets with more potential for building wealth, like mutual funds or ETFs. With this knowledge in mind, clients will be better able to balance short-term and long-term financial goals.

The survey results also highlight the importance of advisors staying up to date on emerging trends and products. People hold 4% of their money in crypto accounts on average, and nearly a quarter of people said they hold crypto assets like bitcoin. Advisors who educate themselves on these assets can more effectively answer investors’ questions.

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5 Factors Linked to Higher Investor Engagement

Engaged investors review their goals often and are more involved in decisions, but which factors are tied to higher investor engagement?

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5 Factors Linked to Higher Investor Engagement

Imagine two investors. One investor reviews their investment goals every quarter and actively makes decisions. The second investor hasn’t reviewed their goals in over a year and doesn’t take part in any investment decisions. Are there traits that the first, more involved investor would be more likely to have?

In this graphic from Morningstar, we explore five factors that are associated with high investor engagement.

Influences on Investor Engagement

Morningstar scores their Investor Engagement Index from a low of zero to a high of 100, which indicates full engagement. In their survey, they discovered five traits that are tied to higher average engagement levels among investors.

FactorInvestor Engagement Index Score (Max = 100)
Financial advisor relationshipDon’t work with financial advisor: 63
Work with financial advisor: 70
Sustainability alignmentNo actions/alignment: 63
Some/full alignment: 74
Trust in AILow trust: 61
High trust: 74
Risk toleranceConservative: 62
Aggressive: 76
Comfort making investment decisionsLow comfort: 42
High comfort: 76

Morningstar’s Investor Engagement Index is equally weighted based on retail investors’ responses to seven questions: feeling informed about composition and performance of investments, frequency of investment portfolio review, involvement in investment decision-making, understanding of investment concepts and financial markets, frequency of goals review, clarity of investment strategy aligning to long-term goals, and frequency of engagement in financial education activities.

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On average, people who work with financial advisors, have sustainability alignment, trust AI, and have a high risk tolerance are more engaged.

The starkest contrast was that people with high comfort making investment decisions have engagement levels that are nearly two times higher than those with low comfort. In fact, people with a high comfort level were significantly more likely to say they were knowledgeable about the composition and performance of their investments (84%) vs. those with low comfort (18%).

Personalizing Experiences Based on Engagement

Advisors can consider adjusting their approach depending on an investor’s engagement level. For example, if a client has an aggressive risk tolerance this may indicate the client is more engaged. Based on this, the advisor could check if the client would prefer more frequent portfolio reviews.

On the other hand, soft skills can play a key role for those who are less engaged. People with low comfort making investment decisions indicated that the top ways their financial advisor provides value is through optimizing for growth and risk management (62%), making them feel more secure about their financial future (38%), and offering peace of mind and relief from the stress of money management (30%).

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