This paper analyzes the costs of housing crises in terms of GDP growth and the economic conditions under which crises are particularly costly. Housing crises are often followed by recessions that are longer than other recessions. According to empirical estimates, a housing crisis reduces the GDP...

In the long term, real estate in Germany and the USA delivers high returns of 5% to 8% per year. However, the path to these average yields differs greatly: total returns on the German real estate markets tend to develop similarly to the gross domestic product with only slight fluctuations. The...

The corona epidemic has caused a temporary reduction in housing market activity and a small drop in housing prices. However, stimulus packages and low interest rates continue to stimulate the demand for housing. Limited price decreases are therefore expected in 2020, and the price level is...

Which housing characteristics are important for understanding homeownership rates? How are housing characteristics priced in the rental and owner-occupied markets? And what can the answers to the previous questions tell us about economic theories of homeownership? Using the English Housing...

The current interest rate level provides hardly any returns on financial investments. Conversely, it offers debtors the opportunity to secure very favorable conditions for borrowing. Accordingly, the aim of this research is to show the effects of low interest rates on the demand behavior of...

Recent developments on German real estate markets show a striking increase of rents, especially in larger towns. This development is, however, not homogeneous: The market dynamics vary between different parts of cities and prices develop highly heterogeneously. Therefore, small-scale results are...

We investigate whether information from news articles could improve predictions of house price inflation at a short forecast horizon. The Covid-19 pandemic led to a shutdown of the Norwegian economy on March 12th 2020. Large economic fluctuations posed challenges for models used to forecast...

Real estate markets are pivotal to financial stability given their dual role as the underlying asset of crucial financial products in financial systems, such as mortgage loans and asset-backed securities, and the primary source of household wealth alike. As such, they also play traditionally a...

We use a new database on European real estate purchase and rental prices - the IWH European Real Estate Index - to document the relationship between staggered COVID-19 dynamics and real estate prices in 14 EU countries between January 2020 and December 2021. For most countries, we find no...