The uncoupling of house prices and mortgage debt: towards wealth-driven housing market dynamics

Mortgage credit has been central in fuelling housing market dynamics in many countries. While mortgage debt and house price increases used to go hand in hand, we see an uncoupling post-global financial crisis, with relative mortgage debts decreasing while house prices are increasing at unprecedented rates. This article scrutinises this uncoupling, contributing in three ways. First, we argue it is representative of how debt-driven housing dynamics have been supplemented by wealth-driven ones: while mortgage debt remains crucial, it has stagnated, and increased wealth investments have fuelled a new round of price increases. Second, we explore key examples of wealth-driven housing dynamics: the increase in private landlordism (buy-to-let), older homeowners reinvesting accumulated housing wealth and intergenerational house purchases. Third, we demonstrate that these dynamics are associated with increasing fractures along the lines of class, age and place, particularly benefiting affluent and older insiders while advancing uneven development. We base our arguments on an empirical analysis of the Netherlands, a country with a highly financialised owner-occupied market boasting one of the highest mortgage-debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, but our arguments have wider relevance. We conclude that current dynamics point to a new era of house price rentierism.