Transaction-Based Office Price Indexes: A Spatiotemporal Modeling Approach

This study examines the potential of a two-order spatiotemporal autoregressive model with a Bayesian heteroskedasticity robust procedure in modeling strata-titled Singapore office unit transaction prices and in constructing transaction-based disaggregate office price indexes. The model reduces the problems caused by the infrequent trading of individual commercial properties. However, for those office properties that are located outside the CBD and also for those less frequently transacted, the power of the model in capturing these particular office buildings' price dynamics is limited. The significant differences of the office prices across the various office buildings and submarkets show that the model can capture the variation in office prices and track the timing of capital gains and losses that investors may accrue on spatially distributed office properties more accurately than hedonic or weighted least squares estimates.     

Project Valuation With Time-Varying Cash Flows: A Bayesian Approach

This article investigates the valuation of a project when the distributions of cash flows vary over time. The decision maker is assumed to be a Bayesian decision maker under uncertainty. Using the dynamic programming principle of backward induction and assuming that the capital asset pricing model is valid in each time period, we derive the project's valuation formulas and systematic risks, and investigate their characteristics. Our valuation formulas embed a Bayesian learning effect and differ from the traditional textbook capital budgeting formulas.     

Loss Aversion and Anchoring in Commercial Real Estate Pricing: Empirical Evidence and Price Index Implications

Loss aversion behavior plays a major role in the pricing of commercial properties, and it varies both across the type of market participants and across the cycle. We find that sophisticated and more experienced investors are at least as loss averse as their counterparts and that loss aversion operated most strongly during the cycle peak in 2007. We also document a possible anchoring effect of the asking price in influencing buyer valuation and subsequent transaction price. We demonstrate the importance of behavioral phenomena in constructing hedonic price indices, and we find that the impact of loss aversion is attenuated at the aggregate market level. This suggests that the pricing and volume cycle during 2001–2009 was little affected by loss aversion.     

Valuation Bias in Commercial Appraisal: A Transaction Price Feedback Experiment

Experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that transaction price feedback may bias valuation judgment. Among participating appraisers, evidence of asymmetrical response was found. The group receiving transaction feedback indicating that current judgments were "too low" responded with judgments in subsequent, unrelated valuations that were significantly higher than the group that received no feedback. The response from "too high" feedback was in the expected direction (lower value judgments) but was not significant. Additionally, valuation dispersion of around 10% revealed in these experiments is consistent with studies of valuation variability and may reflect an upper bound of typical commercial appraisal dispersion.     

A Long Run House Price Index: The Herengracht Index, 1628–1973

This article introduces a biennial historic index of real estate values for the period 1628 through 1973. This index is based on the transactions of the buildings on the Herengracht, one of the canals in Amsterdam. Since its development, the quality of the buildings on this canal has been on a constant, high level, which makes the Herengracht a unique sample to base a long run house price index upon. The index is a hedonic repeated-measures index and is estimated in real terms. An index is also constructed in nominal terms. The average real price increase after World War II is about 3.2% per annum. Nevertheless, the real value of the index in 1973 is only twice as high as it was in 1628.     

Commercial Real Estate Rental Index: A Dynamic Panel Data Model Estimation

Using the actual quarterly rental income generated in the years between 2001 and 2010 by over 9,000 NCREIF commercial properties, we construct a commercial real estate rental index and estimate the time series properties (e.g., mean‐reversion speed and volatility) of market‐wide rental growth using a dynamic panel data model. The dynamic panel data model has several advantages over a standard hedonic regression. In addition, we incorporate age effects into our panel data model, and by doing so we correct the age bias in the repeated sales method and in the simple average method. Our estimates show that rental growth is cyclical but it generally lags behind broader economic growth. Surprisingly, the long‐term average rental growth is significantly lower than what is usually perceived, and the volatility of rental growth can be significantly under estimated when the conventional methods are adopted. We also find significant cross‐property type and cross‐region variations in the rental adjustment process. In contrast to the existing literature, we find a strong negative relation between rental growth and cap rate, and that this relation is significantly stronger than that between NOI growth and cap rate. Finally, we establish an empirical relation between price return and rental growth in the commercial real estate market.     

A Varying Parameters Approach to Constructing House Price Indexes

Conventional housing price index models assume interperiodparameter stability and typically employ either repeat sales or hedonic methodologies. This paper introduces a method of index construction that combines multiple sales observations with single sale transactions while permitting characteristics prices from hedonic regressions to vary over time. A test for interperiod parameter stability is provided. Each period's data are arranged by location and repeat sales are matched by rows. This construction allows greater use of sample information and acknowledges the unique contribution of repeat sales to the estimation process. It also produces intertemporal error correlations that can be beneficially exploited by the seemingly unrelated regressions (SUH) technique. The paper also demonstrates a significance test for error correlation and discusses the treatment of unequal numbers of observations among index periods.     

A Flexible Fourier Approach to Repeat Sales Price Indexes

Time periods are typically highly aggregated for repeat sales estimators because of the small number of observations available in some periods. We use a flexible Fourier expansion to account for time, which we treat as a continuous variable. Our estimator saves degrees of freedom and enables us to estimate the price index efficiently even for times with few sales. We present estimated price indexes for the City of Chicago, Cook County, and several suburbs.     

Property Investment and Rental Rate under Housing Price Uncertainty: A Real Options Approach

The conventional wisdom that housing prices are the present value of future rents ignores the fact that unlike dividends on stocks, rent is not discretionary. Housing price uncertainty can affect household property investments, which in turn affect rent. By extending the theory of investment under uncertainty, we model the renter's decision to buy a house and the landlord's decision to sell as the exercising of real options of waiting and examine real options effects on rent. Using data from Hong Kong and mainland China, we find a significant effect of housing price on rent and draw important policy implications.     

A Spatiotemporal Autoregressive Price Index for the Paris Office Property Market

This article applies the spatiotemporal hedonic approach to the analysis of office transaction prices in the Paris property market ( i.e ., central Paris and its inner suburbs). The analysis focuses primarily on the market's two main business districts (the Central Business District and the La Défense District). We find that spatial and temporal dependence effects are strongly present in these submarkets. Additionally, we propose a hybrid method for incorporating a temporal regime switch into the spatiotemporal autoregressive model. The regime switching around 1997 ( i.e. , in the presence of temporal heterogeneity) substantially affects the significance of spatial and temporal dependences. Finally, we build a new price index that incorporates both spatiotemporal dependences and temporal heterogeneity. This index differs strongly from the usual hedonic price index.     

CPI中采用使用者成本法测算自有住房消费的几个问题

在使用者成本法的基本公式及相关折旧模型的基础上，进一步讨论了采用使用者成本法测算自有住房消费的几个问题。文章首先讨论了使用者成本法与购得法之间的关系，进而探讨了这两种方法导致不同的住房消费量的情况；其次，介绍了如何使用折旧率处理住房的唯一性问题；最后，讨论了使用者成本法中对自有住房作为房屋和土地的复合品的处理方法。     

On Choosing Among House Price Index Methodologies

This paper compares housing price indices estimated using three models with several sets of property transaction data. The commonly used hedonic price model suffers from potential specification bias and inefficiency, while the weighted repeat-sales model presents potentially more serious bias and inefficiency problems. A hybrid model combining hedonic and repeat-sales equations avoids most of these sources of bias and inefficiency. This paper evaluates the performance of each type of model using a particularly rich local housing market database. The results, though ambiguous, appear to confirm the problems with the repeat sales model but suggest that systematic differences between repeat-transacting and single-transacting properties lead to bias in the hedonic and hybrid models as well.     

Risk and the Performance of Real Estate Investment Trusts: A Multiple Index Approach

This paper analyzes the returns of a sample of Real Estate Investment Trusts and examines their risk-adjusted performance using both single index (i.e., CAPM) and multiple index (i.e., APT) models. It is shown that while the performance rankings of the investment trusts are not very sensitive to the risk-adjustment model, the actual performance measures do sometimes differ substantially. Unfortunately, because of the high volatility of these real estate investments, the differences in investment performance across trusts generally are not statistically significant.     

The Termination of Commercial Mortgage Contracts through Prepayment and Default: A Proportional Hazard Approach with Competing Risks

This article examines the factors driving the borrower's decision to terminate commercial mortgage contracts with the lender through either prepayment or default. Using loan–level data, we estimate prepayment and default functions in a proportional hazard framework with competing risks, allowing us to account for unobserved heterogeneity. Under a strict definition of mortgage default, we do not find evidence to support the existence of unobserved heterogeneity. However, when the definition of mortgage default is relaxed, we do find some evidence of two distinctive borrower groups. Our results suggest that the values of implicit put and call options drive default and prepayment actions in a nonlinear and interactive fashion. Prepayment and default risks are found to be convex in the intrinsic value of call and put options, respectively. Consistent with the joint nature of the two underlying options, high value of the put/call option is found to significantly reduce the call/put risk since the borrower forfeits both options by exercising one. Variables that proxy for cash flow and credit conditions as well as ex post bargaining powers are also found to have significant influence upon the borrower's mortgage termination decision.     

Commercial Real Estate Returns: An Anatomy of Smoothing in Asset and Index Returns

In this article, we investigate the commonly used autoregressive filter method of adjusting appraisal‐based real estate returns to correct for the perceived biases induced in the appraisal process. Many articles have been written on appraisal smoothing but remarkably few have considered the relationship between smoothing at the individual property level and the amount of persistence in the aggregate appraisal‐based index. To investigate this issue we analyze a large sample of appraisal data at the individual property level from the Investment Property Databank. We find that commonly used unsmoothing estimates at the index level overstate the extent of smoothing that takes place at the individual property level. There is also strong support for an ARFIMA representation of appraisal returns at the index level and an ARMA model at the individual property level.     

Revisiting the Past and Settling the Score: Index Revision for House Price Derivatives

This article examines index revision in measuring the prices for owner-occupied housing. We consider revision in the context of equity insurance and the settlement of futures contracts. The usefulness of aggregate housing price indexes in these contexts requires stability as they are extended. Methods that are subject to substantial revision raise questions about the viability of derivatives markets. We find that the most widely used house price indexes are not equally exposed to volatility in revision. Hedonic indexes appear to be substantially more stable than repeat-sales indexes and are not prone to the systematic downward revision found in the repeat-sales indexes.     

Price and quantity experimentation: A synthesis

This paper compares experimentation about product differentiation in a linear setting under four market structures: quantity-setting and price-setting monopoly, Cournot and Bertrand duopoly. Quantity-setting firms always experiment by raising their quantities and the monopolist experiments relatively more than the duopolists. A price-setting monopolist does not experiment. The value of information to Bertrand duopolists may be positive or negative depending on the degree of product differentiation. When information is valuable, price-setting duopolists experiment by lowering prices. A numerical example indicates that the intensity of experimentation is higher in a Cournot duopoly than in a Bertrand duopoly.     

Housing Price Forecastability: A Factor Analysis

We examine U.S. housing price forecastability using principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares (PLS) and sparse PLS (SPLS). We incorporate information from a large panel of 128 economic time series and show that macroeconomic fundamentals have strong predictive power for future movements in housing prices. We find that (S)PLS models systematically dominate PCA models. (S)PLS models also generate significant out‐of‐sample predictive power over and above the predictive power contained by the price–rent ratio, autoregressive benchmarks and regression models based on small datasets.     

Overbuilding: A Game-Theoretic Approach

The persistence of excess vacancy has long been documented in the literature. We propose that, because vacant land does not produce income, there is a tendency for developers to build whenever they can identify a development opportunity. Since developers have to compete with each other for the development opportunity, in the aggregate, developers will supply more units than the demand in the market. In the face of an oversupply, we show that, under certain circumstances, developers will not lower the rental rate to eliminate vacancy space. Our model also has implications for investment decisions dealing with projects that could take advantage of existing but not fully utilized assets.     

Controlling for the Impact of Variable Liquidity in Commercial Real Estate Price Indices

Liquidity in private asset markets is notoriously variable over time. Therefore, indices of changes in market value that are based on asset transaction prices will systematically reflect intertemporal differences in the ease of selling a property. We define and develop a concept of "constant-liquidity value" in the context of a model that is characterized by pro-cyclical volume of trading. We then present an econometric model that allows for estimation of both a standard transaction-based price index and a constant-liquidity index. Our application to the NCREIF database reveals that, in the case of institutional commercial real estate investment, constant-liquidity values tend to lead transaction-based and appraisal-based indices in time, and also to display greater volatility and cycle amplitude. The differences can be significant for strategic investment policy viewed from a mean-variance portfolio optimization perspective.