Does low household mortgage debt safeguard against financial crises?

The worst financial crises in OECD countries ( Japan in the late 1980s, the United States and Europe in 2008-2009) have been related to the bursting of a real estate bubble and to excessive household debt . The severity of the crisis stems in particular from the fact that the excessive household debt leads to a banking crisis . When we look at the large OECD countries today , we see that the household deb t ratio has fallen since the crisis everywhere except in Australia , Sweden , Canada, Belgium , France, Switzerland and Finland ; and that residential real estate prices in relation to the nominal per capita wage are now lower than in 2008 everywhere except in Sweden , Canada, Australia , Japan , Belgium , Germany, Switzerland , Austria and Portugal. The possibility of a severe and generalised financial crisis stemming from real estate prices and household debt can therefore probably be ruled out today . This does not rule out such a crisis from occurring in the event of a rise in interest rates in some countries (Sweden, Canada, Australia, Belgium), or that a financial crisis could have another cause such as public debt.