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.     

Redevelopment of Real Assets

Real assets can be redeveloped repeatedly. Unlike financial assets, the option to redevelop real assets can be exercised infinitely often. For a depreciating real asset, the optimal exercise policy and resulting market values are calculated analytically and compared to the standard solution with at most one redevelopment. Relative to the standard solution, redevelopment is on average more frequent and less extensive, and the resulting market values are greater.     

House Prices and Inflation

The present paper examines the long-run impact of inflation on homeowner equity by investigating the relationship between house prices and the prices of nonhousing goods and services, rather than return series and inflation rates as in previous empirical studies on the inflation hedging ability of real estate. There are two reasons for this methodological departure from prior practice: (1) while the total return on housing cannot be accurately measured, the total return on housing is fully reflected in housing prices, and (2) given that using returns or differencing a time series leads to a loss of long-run information contained in the series, valuable long-run information can be captured by using prices. Also, unlike previous related studies, we exclude housing costs from goods and services prices to avoid potential bias in estimating how inflation affects housing prices. Monthly data series are collected for existing and for new house prices as well as the consumer price index excluding housing costs for the period 1968–2000. Based on both autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models and recursive regressions, the empirical results yield estimated Fisher coefficients that are consistently greater than one over the sample period. Thus, we infer that house prices are a stable inflation hedge in the long run.     

Pricing Relocation–Redevelopment Projects for City Expansion: The Case in China

A solution to city expansion under limited land availability is relocation of existing habitants, demolition of existing buildings and redevelopment of new buildings. In the case of Chinese cities, however, such strategies have become a channel for municipalities to increase their revenue from sale of land and productivity from increased development, at the expense of low compensation to former occupants and vacant housing after development. We utilize a sequential real options pricing approach to find conditions when relocation/demolition and redevelopment in a finite time horizon are optimal and also to show what factors the governments can influence to delay or speed up redevelopment.     

Investor Confidence as a Determinant of China's Urban Housing Market Dynamics

China's urban housing market dynamics suggest that evolving investor confidence may be a relevant demand shifter. Such investors are continually updating their beliefs about the state of the macroeconomy and the policy uncertainty related to national and local housing policies. We build a 35 Chinese city real estate confidence index that varies over time and across cities. This index predicts subsequent house price appreciation and new housing sales. We document evidence of heterogeneous effects of investor confidence depending on a city's demographics and the city's elasticity of housing supply. Our results based on a new household‐level expectations survey bolster the case that investor expectations are an important determinant of real estate price dynamics.     

The Housing Market and Real Estate Brokers

The major development in this paper concerns the failure, in earlier studies, to consider interaction between alternative methods of arranging sales in the housing market. A seller may market a house by direct negotiations with buyers, without the intermediation of real estate brokers, or by listing the house with a broker. A rational seller would choose the option which offers the higher expected return on the house. In a sequence of models we argue that the seller's option of a method of sale induces competitive pressure in the choice of the commission rate by the broker. We also consider the split rate in a multiple listing system, ease of entry of brokers and the cartel hypothesis as applied to brokers. We conclude that the competitive pressure of direct negotiations between sellers and buyers, relative free entry of brokers and the inappropri-ateness of the cartel hypothesis cast serious doubt about a general consensus of opinion that the brokerage system is characterized by price fixing, excessive commissions and excessive marketing costs.     

On the Nature of Self‐Assessed House Prices

In models of optimal household behavior, the value of housing affects consumption, savings and other variables. But homeowners do not know the value of their house for certain until they sell, so while they live in their home they must rely on local house price data to estimate its value. This article uses data from the recent housing boom and bust to demonstrate that changes in households' self‐assessed home values are strongly consistent with the predictions of a model in which households optimally filter available house price data. Specifically, we show that self‐assessed house prices did not increase as rapidly as house price indexes during the boom and did not decline as severely during the bust. A Kalman filter model nearly perfectly replicates these data. These findings have direct implications for economists studying asking prices during booms and busts, optimal default decisions and other key housing‐related phenomena.     

Marking Single–Family Property Values to Market

This paper is the text of the 2001 Presidential Address for the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association. House price prediction accuracy is a function of: (1) the procedure used to identify within–metropolitan–area housing submarket boundaries, (2) the econometric technique used to estimate the parameters of the house price model and (3) the characteristics of the local housing market. This paper empirically examines several procedures for delineating within–metropolitan–area housing submarket boundaries. In addition, the paper examines the increase in prediction accuracy that can be achieved by employing spatial econometric techniques to spatially adjust ordinary least squares house price predictions. Finally, the paper examines the influence that local housing market characteristics have on house price prediction accuracy. Housing market characteristics examined here are: (1) structural characteristics of neighborhood properties, (2) heterogeneity of the neighborhood housing stock and (3) housing market liquidity. Prediction accuracy is examined using hedonic house price equations with over 40,000 single–family transactions for Dallas, Texas.     

House Search Duration in Hot and Cold Residential Markets

This study analyzes the determinants of house search duration of consumption‐driven buyers and individual investors in different housing market environments. We use data from surveys of recent house‐buyers in “hot” and “cold” housing markets in the 2000s housing bubble in California characterized by rising and declining residential house prices, respectively. The average house price and the surveyed geographical area are the same for both periods. Expected house ownership horizon is shown to be an important determinant of the realized search duration in addition to commonly considered housing and buyer characteristics. We find a statistically significant positive effect of it on the time until purchase in both housing price environments for consumption‐driven buyers. We also find that consumption‐driven house purchases were highly pronounced in coastal areas in the hot market and inland areas in the cold market. In contrast, long‐horizon investment activity leads that of consumption activity in those areas. Short‐horizon investors, on the other hand, concentrated their house search activity in inland areas in both housing market environments.     

Determinants of Buyer Search in a Housing Market

Using data collected from specially-designed questionnaires, the duration of search by a house buyer is estimated. Duration is measured in two ways: in terms of time and in terms of the number of houses seen. To explain this data, several features must be added to a simple model when search models are applied to a housing market. Many of the statistically significant variables, such as prior information and the quality of information provided by a newspaper or a real estate agent, deal with the provision of information. The type of agency that employs the agent and the characteristics of the buyer have little effect.     

Canadian Inter-City House Price Differentials

The purpose of this paper is to identify the sources of intercity house price differentials in Canada. The results indicate that demand factors are important explanatory variables; a 1% increase in the income of households raises house prices by 1.11%; higher rates of anticipated inflation result in higher house prices as households increase their demand for real assets such as housing during inflationary periods; and finally, the fraction of households that are non-family households is positively associated with house prices. These results are in agreement with those of other countries.     

Temporal and Spatial Information Diffusion in Real Estate Price Changes and Variances

This article examines patterns of temporal and spatial diffusion of real estate price changes. In addition to means, changes in volatility are tracked in reaction to substantial new information, estimated with GARCH-M methods. The data covers towns in Connecticut and near San Francisco. There is evidence of negative feedback at short lags, contrary to previous research on housing and other assets. There is also evidence of a moving average error process which tends to reverse recent shocks. Significantly positive spatial information diffusion is found from neighboring towns in Connecticut but none in control tests on nonneighboring towns. The results also include evidence of a risk-reward tradeoff in housing price changes in the San Francisco area.     

Are There Investor Clienteles in Rental Housing?

The possible existence of investor clientele groups has received little attention in the real estate finance literature. In this paper we develop a clientele model, which in equilibrium produces a clustering of investors by tax characteristics. Low-tax-bracket investors are concentrated in low-value rental housing that attracts rents which are high in relation to property values. On the other hand, only high-tax-bracket investors will be observed in high-value rental housing, and they charge rents that are low in relation to property values. An empirical model is specified and estimated using a cross section of investors in Australian private rental housing markets. Investor clienteles are detected among property investors, though there is a weak diversification effect indicating that clientele effects may be stronger among single property investors.     

The Suburban Housing Market: Effects of City and Suburban Employment Growth

Using a data set of over 88,000 housing sales, we find that city employment growth has a significant positive effect on suburban house values; this effect is largest for housing closest to the central business district and declines with increasing distance from it. City employment growth has a negative effect on the rate of suburban house construction; the magnitude of the effect increases with distance. Suburban employment growth has little aggregate effect on house prices, and there is less variation by distance. Suburban growth has a significant effect on construction rates, especially at locations near the urban fringe.     

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.     

The Interaction of Building Codes and Housing Prices

The study analyzes the effect of restrictive building codes on the price of housing, and the simultaneous impact of housing values on the strictness of codes. A model is defined and estimated, using data for more than 1100 localities. The results show that strict codes raised housing values, in 1970, by about one thousand dollars. They furthermore show that the strictness of codes is in turn affected by housing values, as well as by the strength of construction unions. Homeowners and construction unions are thus both observed to gain from restrictive building codes, which can explain the prevalence of such regulations.     

Explaining Refinancing Decisions Using Microdata

This paper develops a model which explains how mortgage-rate movements, transactions costs, changes in borrower income and house value, personal financial opportunities and the prepayment option embedded in fixed-rate mortgages affect a financially flexible borrower's decision to refinance an existing loan while retaining the underlying home. Broadening the focus of previous analytical work, the model explains why households with similar mortgage loans may react differently as financial market conditions change. It contains definitive empirical predictions that are supported by an analysis of a choice-based sample of individual loan transactions. Results suggest that refinancings are motivated both by movements in the level of interest rates and by borrowers' desires to alter their capital structures in the face of changing income and housing wealth.     

青岛开发区房地产业发展研究

对青岛开发区房地产市场调查评估，发现房地产投资持续快速发展、商品房销售供给两旺、个人购房比例上升、空置房减少。房地产市场能保持购销两旺成因主要是：社会经济良性发展、居民收入快速提高、城市化进程加快、住房制度改革顺利、国家住房金融政策放宽，以及企业和环境等方面。章分析了其房地产业未来发展趋势及需要注意的一些问题。     

Border Effects in House Prices

This article estimates the effect of the Dutch–German border on house prices. We argue that the difference between house prices at the border indicates the willingness to pay to stay in a country compared to living across the border. After a change in the tax rules in 2001, migration from the Netherlands to Germany increased substantially and the gradient of Dutch house price towards the German border steepened. Combining a German and Dutch real estate dataset and using different estimation strategies, we find that asking prices of comparable housing drop by about 16% when one crosses the Dutch–German border.