Between 2000 and 2006, the CaseShiller/Standard and Poor's Housing Price Index increased by 74 percent in real terms, as America experienced a massive housing bubble. Moreover prices in some metropolitan areas grew even faster. Prices in Los Angeles, for example, rose by 130 percent during this...

Since 1950, housing prices have risen regularly by almost two percent per year. Between 1950 and 1970, this increase reflects rising housing quality and construction costs. Since 1970, this increase reflects the increasing difficulty of obtaining regulatory approval for building new homes. In...

In Manhattan and elsewhere, housing prices have soared over the 1990s. Rising incomes, lower interest rates, and other factors can explain the demand side of this increase, but some sluggishness on the supply of apartment buildings also is needed to account for the high and rising prices. In a...

(1)Real house price growth has been high, averaging 10% per annum since 2004. However, there is substantial heterogeneity across markets, ranging from 3% (Jinan) to 20% (Beijing). House price growth is driven by rising land values, not by construction costs. Real land values have risen by over...

Previous research on the United States and Japan finds economically large impacts of changing real estate collateral value on firm investment. Working with unique data on land values in 35 major Chinese markets and a panel of firms outside the real estate industry, we estimate investment...

We provide the first multi-city, constant quality land price index for 35 major markets in China. While there is meaningful heterogeneity in land price growth across cities, on average the last nine years have seen land values skyrocket in many markets, not just those on or near the coast. The...

We provide novel estimates of the timing, magnitudes, and potential determinants of the start of the last housing boom across American neighborhoods and metropolitan areas (MSAs) using a rich new micro data set containing 23 million housing transactions in 94 metropolitan areas between 1993 and...

Between 1996 and 2006, real housing prices rose by 53 percent according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency price index. One explanation of this boom is that it was caused by easy credit in the form of low real interest rates, high loan-to-value levels and permissive mortgage approvals. We...

High and rising prices in Chinese housing markets have attracted global attention, as well as the interest of the Chinese government and its regulators. Housing markets look very risky based on the stylized facts we document. Price-to-rent ratios in Beijing and seven other large markets across...

Commercial real estate capital structure looks to be quite weak due to high leverage combined with strong mean reversion in prices. The aggregate loan-to-value ratio on income-producing properties is about 75%. Estimated mean reversion in price appreciation of at least 25% over relatively short...