I develop a dynamic search model of the housing market in which prices, determined by auction, exhibit greater volatility than prices in the search and matching model with Nash bargaining from the literature. This helps solve the puzzle of excess volatility of house prices. The outcomes of the...

I develop a tractable dynamic model of the housing market where the prices are determined in auctions rather than by Nash bargaining as in the housing search model from the literature. The model with auctions mimics the actual housing markets by generating fluctuations between the booms and...

Do behavioral biases a affect prices in a high-stake market? We study the role of left digit bias in the purchase of an apartment, one of the most important assets in a household's portfolio. Left-digit bias is the inability to fully process digits after the first, perceiving prices just below a...

We offer a theoretical and empirical comparison of auctions and negotiated sales. We first build a simple model to show that auctions generate a higher relative price than negotiated sales when demand for the asset is strong, when the asset is more homogeneous, and when the asset attracts buyers...

How homes sell matters for housing price dynamics. Auction prices forecast better, display less momentum and help forecast economic activity much better than negotiated prices. This is consistent with mechanisms transmitting buyer vs. seller shocks to prices differently and, in light of auction...

This paper reports on the results of an auction sale of 83 condominium apartment units in New Jersey. At the auction every unit was hammered down, but, unknown to the 2,348 registered bidders, 40% of the sales fell through. Prices in the subsequent sale of condominium units in face to face...