House price forecasts in times of crisis: Do forecasters herd?

We used Wall Street Journal survey data for the period 2006 - 2010 to analyze whether forecasts of house prices and housing starts provide evidence of (anti-)herding of forecasters. Forecasts are consistent with herding (anti-herding) of forecasters if forecasts are biased towards (away from) the consensus forecast. We found that anti-herding is prevalent among forecasters of house prices, where anti-herding is less strong in the case of medium-term forecasts, especially in the case of housing starts.