Higher interest rates increase the cost of borrowing to finance expenditure. They increase the incentive to save, or to delay spending, and they reduce the net (after-interest) returns to investment. For households, the biggest single investment decision is likely to be the decision to buy a house. Although interest rates are not the only factor in this decision, a rise in mortgage rates will tend to have the effect of encouraging some households to delay the purchase of a home, or to reduce the amount that they can spend on a home. This sort of calculation is probably very familiar to most people: aspiring home-buyers have a limited capacity to meet interest payments and, when interest rates fall, the size of the loan they can afford increases.