Over the past decade, housing supply restrictions across US cities have contributed to anemic housing construction and high prices in some of the most in-demand locations. In the best of times, these rules have burdened renters and homeowners with unaffordable housing costs. They have also...

This paper analyzes the housing markets and housing policies in Hong Kong, China and the People's Republic of China (PRC). Both markets face housing affordability problems due to limited land supply, for which the solutions vary considerably. Hong Kong, China has adopted a railway and property...

This paper studies the effect of adding space to existing housing apartments on housing price and the probability that owners will sell their apartment (flat). This space adding is part of a large scale urban renewal and upgrading policy in Singapore, and is carried out only if sufficient...

In response to worsening housing affordability resulting from rapid housing price appreciation, some governments have introduced taxes or restrictions to reduce demand for local residential real estate by non-residents. We study the effectiveness of these efforts using the restrictions imposed...

This paper uses the housing market to examine the costs of indoor air pollution. We focus on radon, an indoor air pollutant which is the largest source of exposure to natural ionising radiation and the leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. To overcome potential confounders, we exploit a...

We propose the condemnation risk discount theory, whereby home buyers deduct a discount from housing prices in the absence of insurance against the risk that the government will condemn their property for private transfer. Homeowners cannot separate out the negative risk that their home will be...

This paper presents a first view on the effects of COVID-19 and subsequent shutdown and re-opening orders on residential real estate markets. We use micro-level data on property transactions from a large number of multiple listing services and find moderate aggregate pricing effects in the...

Housing instability threatens to impair the United States' policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic by undermining public health strategies such as social distancing. Yet, mitigation of housing instability has not been the focus of early emergency legislation, including the Coronavirus Aid,...

From 2014 until present, housing prices in Germany have been rising faster than consumer prices in all quarters except one, raising concerns about an excessive over-heating of the housing market. To assess the vulnerability of the German housing market to a future realignment of prices or even a...