Can housing booms elevate financing costs of financial institutions?

Abstract

We show that house price appreciation elevates financial institutions' financing costs because it can make households invest more in houses and invest less in or require higher returns on other assets. For identification, we employ the unique feature of wealth management products (WMPs, the largest component of China's shadow-banking sector) that the issuing markets are local whereas the markets of some products' underlying assets are national. Stocks, bonds, and deposits do not possess this feature. We find that house price growth raises WMPs' expected returns offered by banks. Household-level analyses further confirm that house price growth reduces households' WMP-investment demands.