Credit constraints, inelastic supply, and the housing boom

In this paper, I develop a dynamic general equilibrium model to study the sensitivity of house price changes with respect to credit constraints. I find that house prices are sensitive to changes of the down payment requirements if owner-occupied houses and rental houses are inelastically supplied. I then use the model to evaluate the housing boom during the 1995-2005 time period. I find that, under the assumption that owner-occupied housing and rental housing cannot be converted to each other, the increase in real household income and the decline in down payment requirements can explain a large fraction of the observed house price and price-rent ratio changes during the 1995-2005 time period. However, the model fails to match the interest rate changes during the 1995-2005 period. (Copyright: Elsevier)