Thinking About Buying a House During a Recession?
Just hearing the word “recession” is enough to make potential homebuyers — and almost everyone else — shudder. After all, the most recent recession, in 2008, was devastating to the real estate industry. Sales plummeted, homes went into foreclosure, and the market in general spun into chaos.
But buying a home during a recession can lead to a great deal if you’re savy enough! The 2008 recession and housing market crash showed how closely the economy is tied to home prices.
While most consumers are worried about how long each surge and recession will last and how bad it will get, if you were thinking of buying a home you might have another concern. Should I risk trying to buy during a recession?
We’ll tell you everything you need to know about how recessions affect the real estate industry and whether you should be buying a house during a recession.
What happened to house prices in 2008?
The global financial crisis provides another instructive lesson. Australia famously avoided recession after 2008, and yet the same data shows that property prices actually fell around this time (although they recovered as interest rates fell).
The graph below again shows the Established Home Price Index from the ABS. Notice that the index drops during 2009 (the main events of the GFC began in late 2008) before quickly recovering.
How do we account for rising prices during a recession and falling prices when Australia actually avoided a recession?
“The GFC caused our financial institutions to take a look at what their risk level was and to take a look at what credit was in Australia,” says expert property adviser Christine Williams. “Pre-GFC banks were lending anywhere between 103% and 120% of the asset value. And credit was so free and so open. The GFC really just brought it back into line.”
“And that was why property hit and we avoided the GFC. It was a credit squeeze.”
Williams said these restrictions remain more or less in place today, further protecting the property market against strong price falls. Our financial institutions have, in effect, learned their lesson. It’s no longer possible to get a true no deposit home loan.
While property prices have risen in many periods since 2008–2009, the lending environment is more cautious. You can only borrow 100% now with a mortgage guarantor.
Why did Australian property prices fall in 2017–18?
Property prices fell during 2017–18. And again, the main cause for this was not economic downturn. There was no economic crisis, and property prices had been rising steadily in the years before.
Interest rates were comparatively low too. But these price falls were caused, in large part, by much stricter lending policies.
Williams says that “Lenders became very strict and APRA came down with some very hard-hitting policy changes” as a result of the Financial Services Royal Commission. “People just couldn’t borrow the money because policies were so strict.”
APRA has since loosened this lending policy and interest rates have fallen even lower with recent cuts to the official cash rate.
And the result? Prices in the major property markets are moving upward once again.
Interest rates and lending policy are the key to property prices
We’ve outlined a fairly strong case that suggests low interest rates and lending policy drive price growth more than almost any other factor. Now, we haven’t factored in basic supply and demand, which of course drives prices for any commodity, housing included. Housing supply and housing demand are complex, and the shifting factors are harder to quantify.
But the lessons of history really do suggest that an economic crisis doesn’t mean a property price crash. When it’s easy, and cheaper, to borrow money, property prices tend to grow.
So, if you were in charge of the Australian housing market and wanted to crash (or at least drop) house prices, you could:
Hike interest rates up. Higher rates mean borrowing gets expensive, putting a ceiling on how much people can borrow.
Restrict how much people can borrow. If APRA imposed restrictions on how much people can borrow relative to their income (borrowing power) or relative to their property value (loan-to-value ratio) this could drag prices down.
Put a cap on investor lending. Limiting investor numbers affects supply and demand, but also fits under the category of lending policy decision. This has happened before too.
Get regulators to scare the banks. The Financial Services Royal Commission made lenders incredibly cautious for a while, even if regulatory changes ended up being minimal.
But don’t bet on a property market crash happening just because prices are high. Even if a recession hits, it’s a no guarantee.
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