The Reaction of Real Estate–Related Industries to the Monetary Policy Actions

We study the impact of changes in U.S. monetary policy on the equity returns of real estate–related industries. We find that, over the 1989–2005 sample period covered in our study, a hypothetical unexpected rate cut of 25 basis points (bps) is associated with an increase of about 170 bps in the value‐weighted returns of real estate–related industries. We find that monetary policy impacts the stock prices in real estate–related industries through its impact on the future expected stock returns and not on real interest rates or expected future dividends. There is also some evidence of asymmetry in the responses of the industry returns to the monetary policy actions. A strong stock price response to reversals in the direction of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy is reported.