Household mortgage demand: a study of the UK, Australia and Japan

Purpose: Homeownership has been the main focus of housing policies in most countries. Typical means that households use to achieve homeownership is to take out a loan and supplement this with accumulated wealth for a downpayment. This paper aims to analyze the mortgage demand behavior of households in the UK, Australia and Japan. Design/methodology/approach: Using three panel data sets, HILDA for Australia, KHPS for Japan and USS for the UK, the paper estimates three equations using ordinary least squares: mortgage demand function, housing demand function and initial loan to value ratio function. Findings: Though homeownership is a preferred tenure and the mortgages are “recourse” loans, housing markets in these three countries operate in different mortgage market institutional structures. Results indicate that income elasticity of mortgage demand differ despite income elasticity of housing demand being similar. Different mortgage institutions in countries that pose constraints for borrowers also determine mortgage demand. Other factors such as demography and economic conditions have also played an important role in determining mortgage and housing demand. Originality/value: The paper is first, to the authors’ knowledge, that explores the role of institutions in mortgage demand in a comparative framework for the UK, Japan and Australia.