I think that's related to another somewhat unique feature of the American housing market: home equity loans seem to be quite popular. (I.e. loaning money agains

I think that's related to another somewhat unique feature of the American housing market: home equity loans seem to be quite popular. (I.e. loaning money against the paid-off equity in your primary residence. That's a financial product that I've never even heard of in my home country.) If you're on a fixed-interest mortgage, you don't plan to move and you don't have a home equity loan, it seems to me that you don't need to care at all about interest rate and home price fluctuations.