An econometric model of housing price, permanent income, tenure choice, and housing demand

This paper addresses the determination of housing price, permanent income, tenure choice, and housing demand. Full housing demand elasticities incorporate the interactive effects among the four stages of the model. Price and income have major effects in the tenure choice equation. Sociodemographic variables, such as age, have complex effects that may be lost in simpler forms of estimation.     

Cross-sectional estimation of a simultaneous model of tenure choice and housing services demand

In this paper we analyze the demand for housing services, integrating into a single analysis a systematic treatment of several important conceptual and empirical issues. Our three major objectives are to (1) evaluate the empirical importance of the simultaneity between the tenure choice and consumption level decisions; (2) analyze the relationship between household type and housing demand; and (3) present new estimates of the parameters of housing demand which are based on detailed microdata. In the process, we derive and estimate overall income and price demand elasticities which incorporate the impacts of income and price on both the tenure choice and consumption level decisions.     

Tenure decisions,mortgage interest,and the spatial distribution of housing demand: A theoretical analysis

This paper develops a model for analyzing household tenure decisions and life cycle planning decisions that must be made simultaneously with housing location decisions. It is found that increases in the leverage sensitivity of mortgage interest structures lead to flatter housing gradients within the city. We examine conditions under which households tend to move further from the center with age and income and under which home purchasers will tend to outbid renters at distances further from the center.     

Location and housing demand

William Alonso's model of the demand for housing and location in the monocentric city is one of two pre-eminent models of its type. The purpose of this article is to provide the detailed analysis and the comparative statics of the Alonso model. The complexity of the analysis is seen to derive from the nature of the constraint, which is nonlinear and has slopes which vary with income. A new result is that housing and closeness can be inferior even when they are taste normal. The empirical direct variation of income with distance is explained, consistent with the finding that income increase has indeterminate effects on location and housing demand. The Alonso specification is shown to be superior to others.     

The demand for housing in Sweden: Equilibrium choice of tenure and type of dwelling

Most studies of housing demand and tenure choice only identify two modes of tenure: owner-occupied one-family houses and rental apartments. Furthermore they are typically based on a cross section across all households. In this study we use recent Swedish data to overcome these weaknesses. We identify owner-occupied apartments (coop shares) as a third mode of tenure, and show that this should be treated separately. We also use information about the household's own assessment of its probability of moving during the next year. We demonstrate that it makes a large difference if likely movers are eliminated from the sample.     

Discrete choice models and the housing price and travel to work elasticities of location demand

Multinomial logit and nested logit models of mode choice in travel to work and housing location choice are estimated from 1970 U.S. census data aggregated to small zones of the Chicago SMSA. The estimated models are then used to derive the “housing rent,” “travel time,” and “travel cost” elasticities of location demand. The effects of sampling variation, sample size, attribute inclusion, model specification, and estimation method on the estimated elasticities are evaluated and found to be important. The elasticities are also compared and found to agree with those obtained from other discrete choice models and, in the case of “housing rent,” with estimates obtained from models based on other theoretical structure.     

Tenure choice and expected mobility: A synthesis

This study employs a joint logit probability model to estimate the effects of a vector of independent variables on the household's current tenure choice and expected mobility which are hypothesized to be simultaneously determined. In the empirical analysis it was found that the coefficient on the endogenous variables (tenure choice and expected mobility) is the most highly significant of all the coefficients estimated. In addition, in previous analyses the age of the household head has always exhibited a highly significant positive effect on the probability of ownership. However, in this analysis it is demonstrated that this age variable was acting as a proxy for the expected mobility and wealth of the household.     

Tenure choice and the riskiness of non-housing consumption

This paper analyzes a household's choice of housing tenure within a dynamic utility maximization model that yields simple analytical results under uncertainty of income, housing prices, and rents. Given a housing consumption plan, we show that a decrease in the covariance between a household's earnings and housing rents increases the likelihood of ownership. A household who plans to remain in its home over a long period is more likely to own; a household who plans to remain in its home over a short period is more likely to rent. The higher the covariance between the user cost of a home and that of other properties a household is likely to consider in the future, the more likely the household is to own this home. These predictions of our model find support in recent empirical studies.     

The relationships between income and price elasticities in studies of housing demand,tenure choice,and household formation

Three decisions pertaining to the demand for housing are (1) household formation, (2) tenure choice, and (3) how much housing to consume, given the household formation and tenure choice decisions. Income and price elasticities can be estimated that include one, two, or all three of these decisions. The relationships between these elasticities are developed.     

Residential mobility and housing tenure choice

This paper treats housing tenure choice and residential moves as joint decisions. The parameters of a semi-Markov model with two states, renting and owning and continuous time, length of stay, are estimated with data from the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics for 1970–1980. Several distributional assumptions for residence spells confirm the basic role played by housing prices, wealth and other characteristics. Higher wealth implies higher likelihood of owning higher mobility for renters and lower for owners. Households with educated hands are more mobile. Housing modal prices may have statistically very significant coefficients, but not always as anticipated.     

The housing question in Japan

This article first examines how bad housing conditions are in Japan based on international comparisons. The next question is whether the extremely high land prices in Japan can be explained by economic logic. We then turn to more specific housing policy questions that are peculiar to or important in Japan, such as the tax advantages of owning land that have caused under-utilization of land and the reasons why the average size of Japanese rental housing is so small.     

房价高企 主因在需求畸高——著名经济学家林毅夫访谈录

持续高企的房价已成为目前最引入关注的大众问题。自今年6月全国70个大中城市房屋销售价格涨幅达7．1％、创23个月以来最高纪录后，7月，此数据比1个月前又高出o．4个百分点，新建商品住房的销售价格也同比上涨8．1％，全国房价再创新高。 高房价引发的焦虑也在日益聚集，成为当前房地产市场上空挥之不去的阴云——房价为什么会如此畸高？房地产市场发展过热了吗？房地产“泡沫”真的就要破灭了吗？由此引发另一个疑问：是地价推高了房价吗？ 近日!带着这一系列问题，《中国地立市场》杂志记者专访了著名经济学家林毅夫教授。林教授从宏观经济的角度，对当前的房地产市场问题发表了独到的见解。     

Permanent and transitory income in models of housing demand

Permanent income has for some time been recognized as the appropriate income variable for models of housing demand. This paper examines a recently developed model wherein permanent and transitory income are considered to be the fitted and residual components, respectively, of a regression of actual income on several household characteristics. An important caveat for these models is pointed out. One logical remedial strategy is shown to result in underidentification for the coefficient on permanent income. However, the technique uncovers a tangential result which summarizes why an alternative class of models can be expected to underestimate income elasticities.     

Estimation and policy implications of rental housing demand

The demand for rental housing using the Annual Housing Survey SMSA sample for 1977 is estimated. The principal determinants of rental housing demand, namely housing price and permanent/transitory income, are computed through spatially varying hedonic price techniques and instrumental variables methods (relating to human and nonhuman capital), respectively. Based on the demand estimation results, impacts of hypothetical cash and rent subsidy programs are analyzed in terms of “housing” and “welfare” effects. It is found that a rent subsidy achieves considerably larger effects than does a cash subsidy.     

Implicit markets and the demand for housing characteristics

Important methodological problems in applying Rosen's (1974) model of implicit markets to housing characteristics are inadequately addressed in the literature. This paper summarizes these methodological issues and discusses advantages and disadvantages of various means of coping with these problems in empirical applications. Structural housing characteristics demand estimates are presented, along with an assessment of their accuracy. The results generally are insensitive to specification choices, suggesting the findings are plausible.     

Demography and the demand for housing A reinterpretation of the Mankiw-Weil demand variable

This paper argues that the Mankiw-Weil forecast of a 47% decline in house prices over the period to 2007 is based on a serious misinterpretation of their demand variable. In a time-series context this variable, which comes from a cross-section regression of house values against the age of occupants, is a measure of the adult population, not the demand for housing services or the stock of houses. Econometric work suggests that in addition to adult population, real income, relative prices and real interest rates are important factors determining the aggregate demand for housing. To be credible, forecasts of house prices need to integrate information on demand with information on cost factors and the supply of new houses.     

Estimating household demand for housing attributes in rent-controlled markets

We estimate the household’s marginal willingness to pay for housing attributes in the rent-controlled sector, so where rents are not freely market determined. The application of hedonic price approaches to obtain estimates of the household’s value of housing characteristics is then invalid. We apply an alternative estimation approach based on residential mobility. In our application, we focus on the households’ willingness to pay for number of rooms as well as the willingness to pay to avoid a long commuting distance. Our estimates appear plausible. For example, for households in the rent-controlled sector are willing to pay about 7% of their household income for an additional room. The implied marginal costs of commuting are about €0.17–€0.23 per (one-way) kilometre.     

Transaction costs, capital-gains taxes, and housing demand

The paper considers the effect of transaction costs—particularly in the form of capital-gains taxes—on the aggregate demand for owner-occupied housing. The framework is an overlapping-generations model, where consumers can avoid the transaction costs (taxes) by keeping the same house for both periods of life. The first part of the paper analyzes the consumer's choice problem. It distinguishes between costs that are fixed irrespective of the size of the house bought or sold, and costs such as capital-gains taxes that are related to the house value. It is shown that higher transaction costs have lock-in effects, inducing consumers to keep the same house for both periods. Also it is found that under a wide variety of circumstances the amount of housing demanded will increase as the household is being locked in. Finally, the paper looks at the effects on aggregate demand from an increase in capital-gains taxes. It is shown that an increased rate of taxation decreases demand for low tax rates. But for high tax rates, when lock-in effects become important, one generally gets the opposite effect; high tax rates tend to increase housing demand.