House Prices and Rents : Socio-Economic Impacts and Prospects

We use New Zealand property data at the area unit (suburb) level to examine implied prospects for communities over time, and test whether these derived prospects have explanatory power relating to actual future outcomes. We also use the data to analyse whether disadvantaged communities face particular problems in relation to rental markets. Our results indicate that: capital gains and rental growth expectations historically have appeared reasonable in that they have not been suggestive of asset bubbles or other fad behaviour; derived capital gains and rental growth expectations have explanatory power both over actual future capital gains and actual future rental growth; and lower socio-economic areas face higher rental yields even after controlling for non-socio-economic factors than do high socio-economic areas