This is the document of a special briefing on the wealth effects of house price changes. The wealth effect on consumption refers to the direct effect of a change in net worth on consumption. The coefficient for wealth in equations testing consumption function is thus considered to represent the product of the rate of return and the marginal propensity to consume. This note is about a possible direct effect of a change in net worth brought about by a house price change. A more direct way to see the positive wealth effect on consumption of a rise in financial asset prices is to consider a situation in which consumers simply sell the incremental part of their financial asset holdings. When they do so, they will have, on the asset side of their balance sheets, an increase in cash balance in the amount equivalent to the increment in financial assets occasioned by the rise in their prices and the same amount of financial assets as prior to the rise in their prices. Consumers then can spend the incremental cash over time, raising consumption for a while, before going back to the initial consumption level after all the new cash has been used.