Gifts for home purchase and housing market behavior

Gary V. Engelhardt and Christopher Mayer

New England Economic Review, 1994, issue May, 47-58

Abstract: Rapid increases in house prices can make home ownership more difficult for prospective first-time home buyers by increasing the required down payment amount and, if the increases outpace income growth, by increasing the ratio of mortgage payments to income. In response to such constraints, households may seek a gift or loan from a family member to use as part of the down payment. ; Family transfers for housing purchase may be useful in understanding the relationship between housing finance and housing markets. Gifts may play a critical role for some households in home purchase activity in real estate cycles. This article documents the frequency and magnitude of family gifts for housing purchase and explores economic explanations for their role in home financing.

Keywords: Housing - Finance; Mortgages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1994
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer1994/neer394d.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1994:i:may:p:47-58

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in New England Economic Review from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Spozio ().