Appraisals,Transaction Incentives,and Smoothing

This article is structured around three principal objectives. The first is to determine whether any incentives for appraisals support an underlying purchase offer, which may be termed a transaction bias. Appraisals that are lower than purchase prices could involve additional cost for justification and thus undermine the transaction. The second objective is to test whether appraisal data are smoothed or exhibit less volatility than purchase data. The article compares the volatility of separate appraisal and purchase data. Given separate appraisal and purchase time series, the third objective is to derive the implied optimal appraisal updating rule.The model is applied to appraisal and purchase price indices for 3.7 million repeat transactions on mortgages bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by using monthly data from January 1975 to December 1993. The estimation procedure uses generalized autoregressive conditioned heteroskedastic (GARCH) analysis to take account of persistence in means and volatility in the house price time series. The article draws three principal conclusions. First, appraisals are systematically higher than purchase data, a first-moment differential. Second, appraisal smoothing does not occur generally. Third, the appraisal updating rule for the United States appears to involve error correction whereby underappraisals from pervious periods are eventually adjusted.     

Appraisal Quality and Residential Mortgage Default: Evidence from Alaska

We empirically examine the effect of appraisal quality on subsequent mortgage loan performance using data from the high volatility housing market of Alaska in the 1980s. We develop measures of appraisal quality by computing the residual between a hedonic estimate of house value using available information from other appraisals compared to actual ex ante appraised value. We then estimate proportional hazard models of mortgage default and find that several measures of appraisal quality, particularly appraised value in excess of hedonic estimates, are significantly related to default risk. Using valuations subsequent to loan default, we are also able to evaluate how well house price indices perform in terms of estimating current loan-to-value and offer some additional evidence on the controversy over the role of net equity versus trigger events as determinants of mortgage default. We also show that defaults are related to ex ante measures of housing market conditions, with additional implications for underwriting policies and the current industry trend away from traditional appraisal and toward automated valuation.     

A New Spin on the Jumbo/Conforming Loan Rate Differential

This article uses house-price transaction data to estimate volatility in house prices. The volatility parameter is an input into a mortgage-pricing model that is used to simulate the contract interest rate that balances the mortgage contract. By segmenting the house-price transaction into high- and low-valued homes, we are able to estimate a theoretical jumbo/conforming loan rate differential. Simulation results demonstrate that the differences in volatility between high- and low-priced homes can produce a contract loan rate differential, holding all else constant. The article also presents a discussion of the problems inherent to estimating volatilities form assets with infrequent trades and long holding periods.     

Testing for Fraud in the Residential Mortgage Market: How Much Did Early-Payment-Defaults Overpay for Housing?

Current explanations for the high rate of default and foreclosure in the U.S. emphasize house price fluctuations and lax lending criteria. Another explanation for default and foreclosure, which has generally been neglected in the academic literature but not by the FBI, is fraud. One impediment to identifying and measuring fraud is the lack of statistical tests capable of detecting it. This paper proposes a simple method to detect transactions where fraud may have occurred. The models proposed here are important for at least three reasons. First they can document the role of fraud in the mortgage foreclosure crisis. Second, they can serve as part of a forensic effort designed to detect and deter mortgage fraud. Third, they demonstrate that mortgage fraud distorts house price indexes because it artificially elevates house prices during the period of fraud followed by a subsequent collapse due to the foreclosure sales. Accordingly, fraud can give the false impression that foreclosure lowers area house prices when it actually artificially inflates them. This suggests an alternative interpretation for the recent empirical literature on externalities from foreclosure.     

Price formation and the appraisal function in real estate markets

A real estate market model characterized by incomplete information, costly search, and varying expectations is presented. The model describes a self-selection process for market participants and a distribution of transaction prices. These transaction prices, which arise from a Nash equilibrium, can be expressed as a noisy signal, reflecting incomplete information as well as the conditions of sale. The appraiser's role is formalized as the task of signal extraction. The model emphasizes the differences in information available to individual buyers and sellers, who make transactions only infrequently, and the appraiser, whose expertise comes from observing many transactions. Based on the model, it is shown that contrary to popular perceptions, appraisal smoothing is consistent with an optimal updating strategy.     

房产税对宏观经济的影响效应研究

本文扩展Dong et al.(2019)通过企业家对住房地产和实体经济投资进行资产组合决策,把房价、投资、消费和产出等重要经济指标纳入主流新凯恩斯框架,考虑银行能否区分贷款是投入实体经济还是房地产业两种情形,分析了房产税引入住房市场前后对宏观经济的影响效应。研究结果表明:开征房产税对房地产开发投资、房价和新住房生产具有明显的抑制作用,对实体经济投资则具有正挤入效应增加和负抵押效应减少的双重效应。从短期看,当银行无法区分企业贷款是投入实体经济还是房地产业时,因前期的负抵押效应大于正挤入效应,总实物资本减少,产出下降;当可清晰区分二者时,负抵押效应变为小于正挤入效应,总实物资本增加,产出上升。鉴于推出房产税对宏观经济影响较为复杂,应充分权衡利弊,采取必要辅助措施趋利避害。     

Correlated leverage and its ramifications

This paper develops a theory in which housing prices, the capital structures of banks (mortgage lenders) and the capital structures of mortgage borrowers are all endogenously determined in equilibrium. There are four main results. First, leverage is a “positively correlated” phenomenon in that high leverage among borrowers is positively correlated with high leverage among banks, and higher house prices lead to higher leverage for both. The intuition is that first-time homebuyers with fixed wealth endowments must borrow more to buy more expensive homes, whereas higher current house prices rationally imply higher expected future house prices and therefore higher collateral values on bank loans, inducing banks to be more highly levered. Second, higher bank leverage leads to greater house price volatility in response to shocks to fundamental house values. Third, a bank’s exposure to credit risk depends not only on its own leverage but also on the leverage decisions of other banks. Fourth, positive fundamental shocks to house prices dilute financial intermediation by reducing banks’ pre-lending screening, and this reduction in bank screening further increases house prices. Empirical and policy implications of the analysis are drawn out, and empirical evidence is provided for the first two main results. The key policy implications are that greater geographic diversification by banks, tying mortgage tax exemptions to the duration of home ownership, and increasing bank capital requirements when borrower leverage is high can help reduce house price volatility.     

房产税对宏观经济的影响效应研究

本文扩展Dong et al.(2019)通过企业家对住房地产和实体经济投资进行资产组合决策,把房价、投资、消费和产出等重要经济指标纳入主流新凯恩斯框架,考虑银行能否区分贷款是投入实体经济还是房地产业两种情形,分析了房产税引入住房市场前后对宏观经济的影响效应。研究结果表明:开征房产税对房地产开发投资、房价和新住房生产具有明显的抑制作用,对实体经济投资则具有正挤入效应增加和负抵押效应减少的双重效应。从短期看,当银行无法区分企业贷款是投入实体经济还是房地产业时,因前期的负抵押效应大于正挤入效应,总实物资本减少,产出下降;当可清晰区分二者时,负抵押效应变为小于正挤入效应,总实物资本增加,产出上升。鉴于推出房产税对宏观经济影响较为复杂,应充分权衡利弊,采取必要辅助措施趋利避害。     

Housing Price Dynamics in Time and Space: Predictability,Liquidity and Investor Returns

It is widely accepted that aggregate housing prices are predictable, but that excess returns to investors are precluded by the transactions costs of buying and selling property. We examine this issue using a unique data set—all private condominium transactions in Singapore during an eleven-year period. We model directly the price discovery process for individual dwellings. Our empirical results clearly reject a random walk in prices, supporting mean reversion in housing prices and diffusion of innovations over space. We find that, when house prices and aggregate returns are computed from models that erroneously assume a random walk and spatial independence, they are strongly autocorrelated. However, when they are calculated from the appropriate model, predictability in prices and in investment returns is completely absent. We show that this is due to the illiquid nature of housing transactions. We also conduct extensive simulations, over different time horizons and with different investment rules, testing whether better information on housing price dynamics leads to superior investment performance.     

Do Savings Associations Have a Special Commitment to Housing?

In this paper, we investigate whether elimination of the savings association charter might reduce lending to nontraditional mortgage borrowers. We present a theoretical model of lender portfolio choice, in which nontraditional lenders have some market power and traditional lenders are price takers in the mortgage market. The comparative statics indicate differences between nontraditional and traditional lenders in terms of their asset allocation responses to changes in borrower income and house prices. Empirical tests indicate the absence of such differences between savings associations and commercial banks, suggesting that elimination of the savings association charter would not impair lending to nontraditional mortgage borrowers.     

How Does Appraisal Smoothing Bias Real Estate Returns Measurement?

This paper examines and clarifies several related issues about real estate return indexes. Specifically, even if real estate valuation smoothing exists at the individual property level, such errors may offset in the aggregate. Using data from commercial property appraisals and corresponding transactions, appraisal smoothing errors engender an underestimation of both the first and second moments for real estate returns. After correcting for these “underestimations,” real estate mean returns and the variance appear to be quite similar to those of stocks.     

Adjustable rate mortgages and housing demand: The impact of initial rate discounts

This article investigates the impact of ARM initial rate (teaser) discounts on mortgage choice and housing demand. Because discounted ARM loans may reduce expected user costs, theoretical models predict a positive impact on housing expenditures. To test the hypothesis, a simultaneous model of housing expenditures conditioned upon mortgage instrument choice is estimated using a national sample of transactions for the 1986 to 1988 period. The results indicate that overall housing demand would have been reduced by approximately 13 percent during the period in the absence of ARM loans.     

FINANCING AND HOUSE PRICES

Recent empirical evidence on the effect of below-market financing on house prices has suffered from estimation and interpretation problems. In this paper, a methodology is developed to solve these problems. Using data for mortgage revenue bonds, the methodology is tested with results indicating that all financing subsidy is capitalized into house prices.     

Residential Mortgage Default: The Roles of House Price Volatility, Euphoria and the Borrower’s Put Option

House price volatility; lender and borrower perception of price trends, loan and property features; and the borrower’s put option are integrated in a model of residential mortgage default. These dimensions of the default problem have, to our knowledge, not previously been considered altogether within the same investigation framework. We rely on a sample of individual mortgage loans for 20 counties in Florida, over the period 2001 through 2008, third quarter, with housing price performance obtained from repeat sales analysis of individual transactions. The results from the analysis strongly confirm the significance of the borrower’s put as an operative factor in default. At the same time, the results provide convincing evidence that the experience in Florida is in part driven by lenders and purchasers exhibiting euphoric behavior such that in markets with higher price appreciation there is a willingness to accept recent prior performance as an indicator of future risk. This connection illustrates a familiar moral hazard in the housing market due to the limited information about future prices.     

The Effect of Housing on Portfolio Choice

We show that characterizing the effects of housing on portfolios requires distinguishing between the effects of home equity and mortgage debt. We isolate exogenous variation in home equity and mortgages by using differences across housing markets in house prices and housing supply elasticities as instruments. Increases in property value (holding home equity constant) reduce stockholdings, while increases in home equity wealth (holding property value constant) raise stockholdings. The stock share of liquid wealth would rise by 1 percentage point—6% of the mean stock share—if a household were to spend 10% less on its house, holding fixed wealth.     

Understanding in‐house transactions in the real estate brokerage industry

About 20% of residential real estate transactions in North America are in‐house transactions, for which buyers and sellers are represented by the same brokerage. We examine to what extent in‐house transactions are explained by agents' strategic incentives as opposed to matching efficiency. Using home transaction data, we find that agents are more likely to promote internal listings when they are financially rewarded and such effect becomes weaker when consumers are more aware of agents' incentives. We further develop a structural model and find that about one third of in‐house transactions are explained by agents' strategic promotion, causing significant utility loss for home buyers.     

House prices,consumption and the role of non-Mortgage debt

This paper evaluates the strength of the relationship between house prices and consumption, through the use of debt. Whereas the existing literature has largely studied the effects of house prices on homeowner total or mortgage debt, we focus on the non-mortgage component of household borrowing, using Canadian household-level data for 1999–2007. We rely on variation in regional house prices, homeownership status and age to establish the relationship between house prices and non-mortgage debt. Then, using direct information on debt uses, we determine that house price growth was associated with a non-trivial fraction of concurrent aggregate non-housing consumption growth.     

Sales Concessions in the US Housing Market

This article examines the use of concessions in the US housing market, specifically payments for closing costs, home warranties, and structural repairs. This is the first study to examine the motivations and characteristics of homeowners that utilize concessions. It also examines the impact concessions have on transaction prices and marketing durations. While the literature has attempted to determine if concessions can reduce marketing durations or increase transaction prices, the evidence is tainted by endogeneity and sample issues. Additionally, we find that relative bargaining power between buyers and sellers has a fundamental effect on how concessions alter prices and marketing durations. This aspect has been considered only narrowly in the extant literature. Our results demonstrate that when sellers have bargaining power, transactions including concessions exhibit higher prices and shorter marketing durations. Conversely, when buyers have greater negotiation leverage, transactions including concessions experience lower prices and longer marketing periods.     

住房价格、金融稳定与宏观审慎政策

本文通过建立包含异质性家庭、异质性厂商和金融机构的DSGE模型,分析对预期房价作出反应的货币政策和宏观审慎政策的传导机制和政策效果,研究不同政策的选择和协调问题。研究发现,首先,由于政策的作用范围不同,不同政策会对金融稳定和经济稳定产生不同影响。对预期房价作出反应的货币政策能够抑制住房需求和信贷供给,但也会抑制消费需求和产出;而对预期房价作出反应的逆周期LTV政策和逆周期资本充足率政策在应对房价波动导致的金融稳定问题时更加有的放矢。其次,外生冲击的来源会影响政策的选择和协调——当经济波动来源于需求冲击时,固定LTV政策搭配逆周期资本充足率的宏观审慎政策、不对预期房价作出反应的货币政策表现最优;当经济波动来源于供给冲击时,固定LTV政策搭配逆周期资本充足率的宏观审慎政策、对预期房价作出反应的货币政策表现最优。     

Real Options Premia Implied from Recent Transactions in the Greek Real Estate Market

This research is the first to examine the empirical predictions of a real option-pricing model on market values from the realty market of a Euro area country, namely Greece. Using a manually collected sample of land and property transaction prices, we demonstrate that, a model which incorporates the option to wait to develop land has explanatory power on observed prices over and above the intrinsic value from a simple discounted cash flow (DCF) approach. Recent land transactions in our sample seem to reflect a premium for the option to wait (‘real option premium’) that can be as high as 26.66%–52.38%, especially in the west and north suburbs of Athens. Estimates of annual volatility for specific properties, as implied by transaction prices, are found to range from 15% to 21%.