Housing Finance in a Stochastic Economy: Contract Pricing and Choice

An empirical analysis of macroeconomic time series from the mortgage, housing, capital and labor markets is based on life-cycle consumption and mortgage option pricing considerations. Vector autoregression techniques characterize the long-run equilibrium and short-run dynamics of the mortgage market as it relates to the other sectoral markets. A simultaneous-equations model characterizes the partial equilibrium in the differentiated products market for fixed- and adjustablerate mortgage contracts. The empirical results reveal the impacts that market conditions have on mortgage volumes and prices, and they generally support the implications of the consumption and pricing theories.     

Rational Expectations, Market Fundamentals and Housing Price Volatility

This paper derives a forward-looking rational expectations house price model and empirically tests its ability to explain short-run fluctuations in real house prices. A novel approach to proxying the imputed rents of owner-occupied housing, as a function of observable housing market fundamentals, is combined with a housing market arbitrage relation to derive a present value model for real house prices. Tests of the rational expectations, nonlinear cross-equation restrictions reject the joint null hypothesis of rational expectations and the asset-based housing price model for quarterly, single-detached house prices in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia from 1979–1991. The model fails to fully capture observed house price dynamics in two real estate booms but tracks real house prices well in less volatile times, suggesting that prices may temporarily deviate from fundamental values in real estate price cycles.     

Effects of Macroeconomic Uncertainty and Labor Demand Shocks on the Housing Market

This article shows that macroeconomic uncertainty affects the housing market in two significant ways. First, uncertainty shocks adversely affect housing prices but not the quantities that are traded. Controlling for a broad set of variables in fixed‐effects regressions, we find that uncertainty shocks reduce both housing prices and median sales prices in the amount of 1.4% and 1.8%, respectively, but the effect is not statistically significant for the percentage changes of all homes sold. Second, when both uncertainty and local demand shocks are introduced, the effects of uncertainty on the housing market dominate that of local labor demand shocks on housing prices, median sale prices, the share of houses selling for a loss and transactions. The aforementioned effects are largest for the states that exhibit relatively high housing price volatilities, suggesting real options effects in the housing market during the times of high uncertainty.     

Market structure,capacity expansion,and pricing: A model applied to the Japanese iron and steel industry

The main objective of this paper is to study empirically the simultaneous and recursive relations between short-run pricing, capacity decision, and fluctuations in the elements of market structure. For this purpose, a time-series industry model was constructed and applied to the Japanese iron and steel industry for 1957–1975. The statistical results imply that over time industry market structure — especially seller concentration — might change endogenously in the system. The model also indicated that seller concentration as an element of market structure was a significant determinant of short-run domestic and export prices and also had a significant effect on the capacity decisions. These findings support the proposition that market structure affects market conduct at any moment in time while it is some degree shaped by past market conduct or behavior and structure.     

Government Policies,Residential Mortgage Defaults and the Boom and Bust Cycle of Housing Prices

We develop a micro‐based macromodel for residential home prices in an economy where defaults on residential mortgages negatively affect housing prices. Our model enables us to study the impact of subprime defaults on prime borrowers and the impact of various government policies on the housing market boom and bust cycle. In this regard, our key conclusions are that (i) there is a contagion effect from subprime defaults to prime defaults due to the negative impact of subprime defaults and (ii) monetary policy is the most effective tool for decreasing mortgage defaults and increasing aggregate home prices in contrast to alternative government fiscal policies designed to loosen mortgage credit.     

Are Brokers' Commission Rates on Home Sales Too High? A Conceptual Analysis

Many people in North America believe that prevailing commission rates for residential real estate brokers are too high, even though such beliefs are not based on a formal model. This paper presents a general equilibrium model of the housing market in which real estate brokers serve as matching intermediaries. We use this model to construct an illustrative example which is calibrated using data consistent with a typical housing market. The example suggests that the commission rate which maximizes aggregate efficiency is considerably below the prevailing rate. Moreover, this finding appears to be robust to changes in the matching process.     

Explaining Intermetropolitan Variation in Housing Prices, Rents and Land Prices

In attempting to explain why housing prices, rents and urban land prices vary so dramatically between U.S. metropolitan areas, a simple model of a metropolitan housing market is presented identifying three interrelated submarkets. Estimating equations for rent, housing prices and urban land prices are identified and estimated using two-stage least squares. The empirical results provide strong support for the theoretical model concerning how these three submarkets interact. The results also suggest that household income and construction costs are the most important factors causing housing prices, rents and land prices to vary between metropolitan areas.     

Real Estate Brokers and the Market for Residential Housing

This study explores the role of the real estate broker in the housing market. A model of the demand for broker services by both sellers and buyers is developed and conditional logit estimates are presented. Evidence relating to the effects of the brokerage industry on housing market transactions also is presented. Brokers do not seem to affect the prices of the houses they sell. But they do influence the level of housing consumption by buyers.     

Why Do Sellers Hold Out in the Housing Market? An Option‐Based Explanation

In the residential housing market, home owners are reluctant to sell in a declining market. We build a model which focuses on the embedded call option associated with home ownership that allows owners to delay the (irreversible) sale. When prices are low, the (opportunity) cost of a sale, i.e., a higher implied gain from a future sale, likely exceeds its immediate trade benefit and an owner is better off waiting for market conditions to improve. The model also highlights the importance of supply conditions: a more constrained supply is associated with a longer delay. Using state‐level residential housing data, we find evidence consistent with the model. Transaction volume is increasing (decreasing) in the rental growth rate (volatility) in the cross section; their effects are amplified in areas with low supply elasticities, and in times with low market prices. Overall, this paper provides a rational explanation for delayed trading decisions in the housing market.     

Hedging House Price Risk in China

The increasing risk associated with China's housing prices is globally recognized. However, hedging this risk is challenging because of a lack of financial derivatives on China's housing assets. We suggest that the short sale of futures contracts for construction raw materials, i.e., iron ore or/and steel, can act as useful tools to hedge the systematic risk of China's new home price. We first present evidence that there is a strong and stable correlation between changes in China's housing prices and global steel/iron ore prices. Using a hedging strategy model, we then show that, during the sample period between 2009 and 2015, 20.6% of the total unpredicted variance in Chinese housing prices can be hedged by shorting rebar and iron ore futures. We further examine this strategy with an event study based on the announcement of the “home‐purchase restriction” policy in April, 2010. The cumulative abnormal returns show that both steel and iron ore prices reacted significantly to this negative shock, and therefore the proposed strategy could substantially help investors offset losses in the housing market. We finally provide some evidences that this strategy can also help investors in specific regional housing markets, or the resale housing markets.     

Capital flows and stock price volatility: Evidence from Hong Kong

This paper investigates both the short-run dynamics and the long-run co-movement of stock prices, capital flows and the real interest rates in Hong Kong. By using the Johansen multivariate cointegration technique, this paper finds that there are two cointegration vectors among the variables. In other words, the results show that the three variables in Hong Kong are moving together. This long-run relationship implies that even the stock market is efficient in the short-run. Its long-run movement can, however, be predicted by the activities of the capital market.This paper benefited greatly from the comments of anonymous referees. All remaining errors are ours alone.     

Internet Search Behavior,Liquidity and Prices in the Housing Market

We employ detailed internet search data to examine price and liquidity dynamics of the Dutch housing market. We show that the number of clicks on properties listed online proxies demand and the number of listed properties proxies supply. From this internet search behavior, we create a market tightness indicator and we find that this indicator Granger causes changes in both house prices and housing market liquidity. The results of a panel VAR suggest that a demand shock results in a temporary increase in liquidity and a permanent increase in prices in urban areas. This is in accordance with search and matching models.     

Mortgage Credit Availability, Housing Starts and the Integration of Mortgage and Capital Markets: New Evidence Using Linear Feedback

This paper employs linear feedback measures to examine the relationship between housing starts and the availability of mortgage credit. Estimates are obtained using monthly data with samples ending with May 1978 and beginning with June 1978. The results indicate that mortgage credit availability contributed significantly to short-run cycles in housing starts in the earlier sample. Such feedback is considerably smaller, however, in the later sample. The results suggest the housing finance sector has become integrated with the overall capital market as the result of the deregulation of thrift deposit rates and the development of the securitized mortgage market.     

Modeling and Computing Transactions Costs for Purchasers of Housing Services

This paper models, as equilibrium behavior, buyers' behaviors under transactions costs and market failure constraints. It derives equilibrium conditions and it shows how they differ from unconstrained models. Standard utility and cost parameters are then used to estimate the economic costs of the constraints, which may be interpreted, at the margin, as the transactions costs of moving. If transactions costs are greater than the economic costs of the constraints, the household remains in a residence, even in response to changed price and income expectations. Changes in expected prices and incomes lead to changed housing demand even when the household cannot adjust housing consumption between periods. These findings have implications for empirical work with both cross-section and panel data sets.     

The Effect of Municipal Services and Local Taxes on Housing Values

This paper presents an economic model which casts the "Tiebout Hypothesis" in a Von Thumen type model of spatial equilibrium and considers the effect of differential provision of municipal services on household utility levels and housing prices in a politically fragmented urban area. Also in the context of this model three alternative methods of financing municipal services are examined. The article suggests that different levels of municipal services may cause spatial disequilibrium in an urban area, and as households move within the urban area to maximize their utility, they bid up (or down) the price of housing to the extent that their consumer's surplus is capitalized in housing values. Thus, the resultant urban rent gradient may be "kinked" or discontinuous. This paper also presents empirical findings examining the relationship between housing values and several municipal services.     

Is the variability of world wheat prices increasing?

Estimates are derived of the potential variability of world wheat prices and the sources of this variability. These indicate a sizable increase in the probability of large short-run fluctuations in price. The bulk of this variability is due to fluctuations in the domestic grain production of developing and centrally-planned economies. However, most market participants are unresponsive to short-run changes in world price, and transmit a substantial amount of domestic variability to the world market. The key factor in world price stability is the short-run responsiveness of wheat exports from the USA. It is likely that both the physical and policy factors that have contributed to increased variability will persist.     

Housing Attributes Associated with Capital Gain

Housing units are heterogeneous goods. Rates of change in housing prices are typically modelled as if they arise from factors unrelated to the housing unit itself. For example, housing price increases in the latter part of the 1970s and early 1980s are argued to have arisen primarily from demographic factors and the differential effects of inflation on the effective rate of taxation on income from corporate capital and on owner-occupied housing. Cross-sectional variation in price inflation is not addressed. Consumers who purchased housing units are not indifferent to their attributes. To the extent that expectations vary within regional housing markets as a consequence of variation in housing attributes, standard linear hedonic price regression may generate biased estimates of implicit prices. This paper identifies sufficient conditions for the estimates of implicit prices in linear hedonic price regressions to be unbiased and generate unbiased estimates of implied price changes. Finally, this paper identifies living space (house size) as a significant attribute related positively to the increase in individual housing prices in a regional market.     

Centrality and pricing in spatially differentiated markets: The case of gasoline

We highlight the importance of ‘centrality’ for pricing. Firms characterized by a more central position in a spatial network are more powerful in terms of having a stronger impact on their competitors' prices and on equilibrium prices. These propositions are derived from a simple theoretical model and investigated empirically for the retail gasoline market of Vienna, Austria. We compute a measure of network centrality based on the locations of gasoline stations in the road network. Results from a spatial autoregressive model show that prices of gasoline stations are more strongly correlated with prices of central competitors.     

New Place-to-Place Housing Price Indexes for U.S. Metropolitan Areas, and Their Determinants

Housing prices vary widely from market to market in the United States. The purpose of this study is to (1) construct new place-to-place indexes of the price of housing, using the 1990 Census, and (2) analyze the determinants of housing prices, with a particular focus on the supply side determinants—regulatory and natural constraint—as well as the usual demand determinants.     

Do Homeowners Mark to Market? A Comparison of Self‐Reported and Estimated Market Home Values During the Housing Boom and Bust

This article examines homeowners’ self‐reported values in the American Housing Survey and the Health and Retirement Study from the start of the recent housing price run‐ups through recent price declines. We compare ZIP‐Code‐level market‐based estimates of housing prices to those derived from homeowners’ self‐reported values. We show that there are systematic differences which vary with market conditions and the amount of equity owners hold in their homes. When prices have fallen, homeowners systematically state that their homes are worth more than market estimates suggest, and homeowners with little or no equity in their homes state values above the market estimates to a greater degree. Over time, homeowners appear to adjust their assessments to be more in line with past market trends, but only slowly. Our results suggest that underwater borrowers are likely to understate their losses and either may not be aware that their mortgages are underwater or underestimate the degree to which they are.