Mortgage lending and housing prices in Russia: Unfounded accusations?

The article analyzes the relationship between the price of housing and the volume-of issued housing loans in Russia in 2009-2021. Has the development of the mortgage lending market in recent years driven up housing prices, as has often been claimed? Using data from Rosstat and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on average housing prices and lending volumes in Russia as a whole, as well as in Russian regions, the significance of mutual influence of their quarterly and annual changes is estimated using vector autoregression and panel vector auto-regression models, taking into account exogenous variables. It has been found that mortgage lending dynamics was not a significant and stable factor in the growth of housing prices. The latter largely depended on the households' solvent demand, macroeconomic conditions, the state of regional economy, and dynamics of the housing stock.