Hypoteční sazby a dynamika cen rodinných domů v Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim (2014–2024)

This thesis investigates the relationship between mortgage financing conditions and house price growth in Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim, with particular attention to when the effect becomes most visible. Using monthly data, the baseline analysis covers 2014–2024 and is complemented by an extended sample (2004–2024). The empirical approach estimates a time-series regression of monthly house price growth on changes in the U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage rate, comparing horizons of 3, 6, and 12 months. The specification accounts for persistence in price growth and includes controls for local labor-market conditions (unemployment), inflation, building permits as an indicator of construction activity, and a COVID-period dummy. Inference relies on heteroskedasticity-and-autocorrelation-consistent (HAC/Newey–West) standard errors. The results show strong persistence in monthly house price growth. Mortgage rate increases are followed by slower price growth at short horizons, with the clearest evidence at the three-month specification; estimates at six and twelve months are small and statistically insignificant. Robustness checks excluding the COVID period and using the longer sample yield similar timing patterns, suggesting that the short-horizon relationship is not driven by a single episode or a narrow sample window. Overall, the evidence indicates that the link between mortgage financing conditions and observed house price growth is concentrated at shorter lags, consistent with delayed adjustment in transaction-based housing markets.