Liquidity and Information Asymmetry in the Real Estate Market

George Akerlof??s asymmetric information theory explains why lemons are rarely, if at all, transacted. We extend his theory to explain liquidity in the second-hand real estate market. The idea is to decompose real estate into two components: land and the building structure. While sellers may know more about the quality of their structures than buyers, information on land, predominantly its locational attributes, is much more transparent. Without assuming any credit constraints or loss aversion behaviour, our information asymmetry model shows that: 1) the liquidity of real estate increases with the share of its land value; 2) there is a positive relationship between real estate prices and turnover rates when land supply is more inelastic than the supply of structures; 3) the positive relationship is stronger when the land value component gets smaller; and 4) while the availability of first-hand real estate may divert demand away from the second-hand market, such a substitution effect is weaker when the land value component is large. These four implications were confirmed with panel data analysis using Hong Kong??s housing transactions from 1992 to 2008 across 50 districts.     

江西省房地产市场发展与房地产金融风险关系实证研究

金融危机爆发后,世界主要经济体普遍实行了宽松货币政策。在这一背景下,我国房地产市场强势反弹,销量涨幅创历史新高,成交均价一路走高。2009年,江西省房地产市场实现逆势上扬行情,呈现出投资增速逐月回升,供给面积低位增长,销售规模大幅上升,成交均价一路走高的运行特点。在分析江西省房地产市场运行特点的基础上,本文从实证角度考察了房地产市场发展与金融支持之间的关系。实证结果表明,房地产市场的发展、房价的上涨与金融支持之间具有相互促进、互为因果的密切关系。在此基础上进一步分析了房地产市场发展中隐含的金融风险,并提出相应的对策建议。     

Commercial Real Estate Market Property Level Capital Expenditures: An Options Analysis

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - Option pricing theory predicts that capital improvement expenditures are positively linked with high or increasing market lease rates. Ceteris...     

Valuation in US Commercial Real Estate

We consider a log‐linearized version of a discounted rents model to price commercial real estate as an alternative to traditional hedonic models. First, we verify a key implication of the model, namely, that cap rates forecast commercial real estate returns. We do this using two different methodologies: time series regressions of 21 US metropolitan areas and mixed data sampling (MIDAS) regressions with aggregate REIT returns. Both approaches confirm that the cap rate is related to fluctuations in future returns. We also investigate the provenance of the predictability. Based on the model, we decompose fluctuations in the cap rate into three parts: (i) local state variables (demographic and local economic variables); (ii) growth in rents; and (iii) an orthogonal part. About 30% of the fluctuation in the cap rate is explained by the local state variables and the growth in rents. We use the cap rate decomposition into our predictive regression and find a positive relation between fluctuations in economic conditions and future returns. However, a larger and significant part of the cap rate predictability is due to the orthogonal part, which is unrelated to fundamentals. This implies that economic conditions, which are also used in hedonic pricing of real estate, cannot fully account for future movements in returns. We conclude that commercial real estate prices are better modelled as financial assets and that the discounted rent model might be more suitable than traditional hedonic models, at least at an aggregate level.     

银行必须直面房市风险

随着货币政策的进一步紧缩,作为高度依赖于外部融资的房地产行业的风险引起了人们的普遍关注.有房地产业的知名人士甚至说,要房地产业死,银行必先死,摆出一副绑架的架势,但是,这并非是不可信的威胁.     

On Indexing Commercial Real Estate Properties and Portfolios

Commercial real estate indices play an important role in performance evaluation and overall investment strategy. However, the issue of how representative they are of the returns on portfolios of commercial properties is an open issue. Our study addresses this topic by analyzing a sample of 12,427 repeat sales transactions between Q4 2000 and Q2 2011. We find that the aggregate real estate indices (Moody’s REAL CPPI) do a good job of tracking real returns when portfolios of more than 20 properties are considered. At this level, tracking is somewhat less effective than our benchmark of the S&P500 and its component stocks. Compared to the average root mean squared deviation (RMSD) from one asset, randomly selected portfolios with 20 assets reduce the RMSD by 75 % for the S&P500 compared to 66 % for the aggregate index. These results suggest that the aggregate indices can be effective in hedging and evaluating the performance of direct real estate investment. We further find that tracking at the property type level provides little benefit over using an aggregate index. However, indexing using a property type and location matched index provides lower tracking error for any level of diversification.     

Economic Risk Factors and Commercial Real Estate Returns

A great deal of research has focused on the links between stock and bond market returns and macroeconomic events such as fluctuations in interest rates, inflation rates, and industrial production. Although the comovements of real estate and other asset prices suggests that these same systematic risk factors are likely to be priced in real estate markets, no study has formally addressed this issue. This study identifies the growth rate in real per capita consumption, the real T-bill rate, the term structure of interest rates, and unexpected inflation as fundamental drivers or state variables that systematically affect real estate returns. The finding of a consistently significant risk premium on consumption has important ramifications for the vast literature that has examined the (risk-adjusted) performance of real estate, for it suggests that prior findings of significant abnormal returns (either positive or negative) that have ignored consumption are potentially biased by an omitted variables problem. The results also have important implications for dynamic asset allocation strategies that involve the predictability of real estate returns using economic data.     

通货膨胀与房地产市场的相关性分析

本文通过对我国居民消费价格指数与房地产市场的价格指数之间的相关性进行统计分析,结果表明两者之间存在显著的正相关。文章进而分析了我国近年来房地产市场的发展对CPI的主要影响渠道,并指出房地产市场的理性调整有利于控制当前的通货膨胀。     

Spatial Statistics Applied to Commercial Real Estate

Portfolio theory shows that diversification can enhance the risk-return trade-off. This study uses the absolute location of commercial real estate property along with spatial statistics to address the inherent problem of determining geographical diversification based upon a set of economic and property-specific attributes, some of which are unobservable or must be proxied with noise. We find that commercial real estate portfolios exhibit statistically significant spatial correlation at distances ranging from adjacent zip codes to neighboring metropolitan areas. Given the common structure of dependence found in the data series, we discuss feasible strategies for obtaining diversification within direct-investment real estate portfolios.     

难解的中国房地产市场公案——兼谈思维误区和解决途径

从利率上调到严控第三套房,再到近日的经济适用房新规,政府对于被称为已近疯狂状态的房地产市场调控之策频出,上海、北京、深圳等地的房市交易量也应声下跌。对此,坊间评论不一。商品房为商品其性质到底如何?政府、开发商、投资者和银行的前期行为都有哪些可指摘之处?钱学宁先生为读者提供一看待房市的新视角,尤其需要指出的是,同各种媒体所示带有情绪的评论甚至抱怨相比,此文冷静又不失尖锐的评论尤为显得更客观和公正些。     

Corporate Real Estate and Stock Market Performance

An interesting question in corporate real estate literature is whether real estate can improve the stock market performance of property-intensive non-real estate firms. Using a data set comprising 75 non-real estate corporations that own at least 20 percent properties, this paper empirically assesses and compares the pair-wise return, total risk, systematic risk and Jensen abnormal return performance of composite (with real estate) and hypothetical business (without real estate) firms. We employed Morgan Stanley Capital International world equity index instead of a local market index to provide some insights into the performance of the local market relative to the global market during the 1997–2001 volatile periods experienced by many Asian countries. Our results suggest the inclusion of real estate in a corporate portfolio appears to be associated with lower return, higher total risk, higher systematic risk and poorer abnormal return performance. It is therefore likely that non-real estate firms own properties for other reasons in addition to seeking improvement in their stock market performance. Further research is needed to explore the main factors contributing to corporate real estate ownership by non-real estate firms.     

房地产市场、人口结构与居民杠杆率——基于省际动态面板数据

本文基于31个省份2007～2017年的动态面板数据,采用系统GMM估计方法研究我国居民杠杆率快速上升的影响因素。实证结果表明,住房价格、住房需求与居民杠杆率存在较强的正相关关系,同时随着人口老龄化加剧,居民杠杆率也将进一步上升。因此,维护房地产市场的稳定和缓解人口老龄化负面影响,对遏制居民杠杆率的快速上升至关重要。     

Foreclosure,REO, and Market Sales in Residential Real Estate

Assessment of lender and third-party bidder acquired properties at foreclosure auction is provided. Properties acquired at foreclosure auction by third-party bidders transact at a discount to lender dispositions of real estate owned (REO) properties. The discount reflects a reduction in costs associated with lender owned (REO) dispositions and uncertainty faced by third-party bidders. Moreover, there is a ranking in transaction prices among initial purchases by third-party bidders at foreclosure auction, REO sales, non-distressed property sales and the subsequent sales of third-party bidder acquired properties. Third-party bidder auction prices are below REO sale prices, which are below non-distressed property sale prices, which are below the subsequent sale prices of third-party bidder acquired properties. The price spacing by cohort is logical, intuitive and economically justified in a market with rational participants. Implications are also apparent for the measurement of price changes, net sale proceeds and returns to residential real estate.     

Capital Distribution Policy and Information Asymmetry: A Real Estate Market Perspective*

This article examines the relation between the distribution of capital to real estate investors and a market-based measure of information asymmetry. Previous research suggests that information asymmetries decrease as capital is distributed to outside investors. However, little attention has been given to those firms for which the marginal benefit of increased distributions may be small. Our analyses are based on a sample of real estate investment trusts (REITs), which are popularly characterized as high yield investments due to the regulation of a minimum distribution policy. The extent to which information asymmetry is influenced by these regulations, as well as by the opaque nature of the underlying assets, is an interesting empirical question. The results based on several years of data indicate that the perception of asymmetric information is lower for REITs that distribute more capital to their shareholders. A decomposition of yield into income and return-of-capital components reveals no differential effect in information relevance. The insights drawn from the results may be useful in determining the efficacy of real estate capital distribution policies and regulations.     

金融市场的最大风险来自房地产

2014年,金融市场的最大风险来自房地产。下半年,房地产投资会在整体降速的基调上略微升温。中国人民银行于6月12日发布的金融数据显示,今年5月份社会融资总计人民币1．4万亿元,     

Underwriting Limits and Optimal Leverage in Commercial Real Estate

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - Risk-averse commercial mortgage lenders follow an underwriting policy with strict limits based on the property’s value and cash flow. A...     

Preferences of Institutional Investors in Commercial Real Estate

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - In this paper we analyze market segmentation by firm size in the commercial real estate transaction process. Using novel micro-level data, we look...     

The Determinants of International Commercial Real Estate Investment

We examine the determinants of international commercial real estate investment using a unique set of panel data series for 47 countries worldwide, covering the period from 2000 to 2009. We explore how different socio-economic, demographic and institutional characteristics affect commercial real estate investment activity by determining both cross-sectional and time-series estimators, running augmented random effect panel regressions. We provide evidence that economic growth, rapid urbanization and compelling demographics attract real estate investment, and also demonstrate that a lack of transparency in the legal framework, administrative burdens of doing real estate business, socio-cultural challenges and political instabilities reduce international real estate allocations.     

房产税税率、房产税收入与房地产税制度设计

基于房产税税率对房产税收入影响理论,运用数理模型,依据沪渝两市自然数据,考量房产税税率变化对房产税收入的影响.结果显示:房产税税率对房产税收入具有重要影响.若提高上海市房产税税率,房产税增收效果更明显;若下调重庆市房产税税率,房产税增收效应更显著.鉴于此,未来房地产税立法改革思路:一是坚持房地产税税负不增加;二是平衡好房地产税立法与其他收费制度的关系;三是统筹税制改革的协同推进;四是兼顾房地产税的地方财政属性;五是谨慎推进.同时,应遵循税收法定原则、地方财政原则、公平原则、确实原则、渐进原则和结构性调整原则.此外,在制度设计方面,纳税人的设计要体现财产税性质,征税范围要涵盖农村,课税对象要包括存量住房,税率要体现差异性,计税依据要由市场价格评估值确定,税收优惠要兼顾免税面积和特殊人群.