That’s a fair point. To be more precise, I mean that many people who buy houses need mortgages to do so. Higher interest rates mean that for a fixed deposit and

That’s a fair point. To be more precise, I mean that many people who buy houses need mortgages to do so. Higher interest rates mean that for a fixed deposit and budget for mortgage payments, the amount one can borrow decreases. All other things being equal, one would expect the demand for purchasing houses (I’m trying to be careful here to not talk about renting, which I guess the term ‘housing’ often includes) to decrease. Something that might not be equal is the available mortgage payment budget – it may be lower due to more money being spent on other things or it may be higher due to wage increases – so perhaps that’s part of it.