Mortgage Lock-in: A Review of the Literature

Kristopher Gerardi, Franklin Qian and David Hao Zhang

No 2026-11, FRB Atlanta Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Abstract: This paper reviews the rapidly growing literature on mortgage lock-in and its effects on household mobility, labor reallocation, home sales, owner-occupied prices, and spillovers into rental and commercial markets. We then discuss two future research directions: (1) separately identifying lock-in effects from the direct effects of the existing interest rate on the mortgage, which have different implications for household behavior as market interest rates rise, and (2) assessing the general-equilibrium consequences of reduced mobility on labor markets and productivity. We close by discussing policy responses, including portability, broader assumability, and a Danish-style delivery option.

Keywords: mortgage lock-in; fixed-rate mortgage (FRM); household mobility; house prices; rents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E52 G18 G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26
Date: 2026-08-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.atlantafed.org/-/media/Project/Atlanta ... f-the-literature.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:fedawp:103593

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

DOI: 10.29338/wp2026-11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in FRB Atlanta Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Rob Sarwark ().