mortgages

If you wanted the market to crash then yes. Although in the past few years many more deals are being done as all cash so the impact would probably be less.

I'v read that in one Hillary Clinton's private speeches to Goldman Sachs, she said that her father did not believe in mortgages and bought their simple house with savings. Not sure when that was- in the 1960's the average price of a home was 58,000 in 2000 dollars. The average price in 2000 was 119,000. Just like college tuition, prices have gone up because of availability of loans, in part. People who don't have a million dollars can buy a million dollar home if they have 200,000. This has the effect of increasing prices to the maximum that people can borrow. It gives people the illusion that they, and not the bank, own the property. I've also read that Sharia law prohibits mortgages, and that Jewish law prohibits lending with interest to other Jews--not sure how that applies to mortgages.