Mortgage lending and housing prices in Russia: Unfounded accusations?

Abstract

The article analyzes the relationship between the price of housing and the volume of issued housing loans in Russia in 2009—2021. Has the development of the mort- gage lending market in recent years driven up housing prices; as has often been claimed? Using data from Rosstat and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on average housing prices and lending volumes in Russia as a whole; as well as in Russian regions; the significance of mutual influence of their quarterly and annual changes is estimated using vector autoregression and panel vector autoregression models; taking into account exogenous variables. It has been found that mortgage lending dynamics was not a significant and stable factor in the growth of housing prices. The latter largely depended on the households’ solvent demand; macroeco- nomic conditions; the state of regional economy; and dynamics of the housing stock.