The key thing I would say here is that among these three reactions that consumers may have taken in the face of refinancing at higher rates, or dealing with higher mortgage rates, is not that they have exhausted savings but that they had significant savings already.
What we saw, particularly during the pandemic and the period prior to the run-up in interest rates, was a large-scale increase in other types of financial assets. I think, on an aggregate basis, if you look at the financial assets that households hold, it represents something like four and a half times the value of outstanding debt. Therefore, the sector as a whole had a fair amount of flexibility and a fair cushion built in to make those adjustments.
