On the Factors Causing a Boomlet Across Different Countries. A Case Study of the German Mortgage Market

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2018 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1.7, Furtwangen University, course: Master of Science, language: English, abstract: The goal of this thesis is to find and to analyze the factors that ignited the housing bubble across different countries and to apply them to the German mortgage market. The reason for research is that the global financial crisis emphasized the risks associated with real-estate booms. In any great financial crisis, the mortgage boom was buoyed by the housing rise and economic activity. When that spiral inverts, falling house prices make tightened lending standards, which bring to widespread failures and debt overhang. The consequences are recessions and high surges in public debt. The thesis is composed of four chapters, each of them dealing with different perspectives of housing boomlet and macro-financial factors. The purpose of this thesis is to define whether there are also housing bubbles within the German mortgage market, as well as to find out which factors prevent Germany from a housing bubble. In order to do so, secondary data from prestigious financial institutes will be analyzed. The result is that there is no housing bubble in Germany at the national level, but that there has been a housing bubble in several cities. Fusions of macroprudential policy (loan-to-value), monetary policy (interest rate) and other housing financial characteristics (term to maturity, cost of registering property, and tax deduction) are buffers to stop housing boomlet. In conclusion, the German mortgage market has not been affected by the United States housing bubble because of the difference in manipulating macroprudential policy and housing financial characteristics.