In contrast to the prediction of the present-value model, many empirical studies find the price-rent ratio nonstationary. This finding is frequently interpreted as evidence of speculative bubbles. In this paper, we seek an alternative explanation. Allowing the expectations of future housing...

There is a growing consensus that reform is needed for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is often suggested that the connections between the GSEs and the federal government should be permanently severed and the firms reduced in size so that their...

This paper constructs the first repeat sales house price index in United States history before 1950, using data from Baltimore. It shows that house prices fell more during the 1890s and 1930s than existing data indicate. As a result, while previous data suggest most borrowers should have been...

We investigate if house prices are affected by overconfidence of households who predict house prices using imperfect public information about economic outlook. For this purpose, we develop a new measure of household overconfidence in the Bayesian framework. For the three variables we test –...

We develop a dynamic model of corporate investment and financing, in which shocks to the value of collateralizable corporate real estate assets generate variation in firms' debt capacity. We show that the degree of similarity among firms' financial flexibility forecasts cross-sectional variation...

Using data from the housing market of Los Angeles County, we show that experienced asset flippers earn sizable abnormal performance with respect to both investments in the U.S. stock market and in a passive mutual fund tracking a representative U.S. REIT index. Abnormal performance is positive...

This paper studies the pricing of the risk associated with the location of the assets. The location risk is measured by ‘local beta’, which combines the systematic risk of local property markets and the property allocation strategy of real estate firms. The empirical results confirm a higher...

This paper describes six stylized patterns among housing markets in the United States that potential explanations of the housing boom and bust should seek to explain. First, individual housing markets in the U.S. experienced considerable heterogeneity in the amplitudes of their cycles. Second,...

While in standard housing economics housing is regarded as an asset and a consumption good, we study in this paper the consequences for housing prices if housing is also a status good. More concretely, if a family's housing wealth relative to others is an important marker for relative status in...

How do list and sale prices relate to each other over the market cycle? Using a dataset of over 650,000 Irish property listings and transactions between 2006 and 2012, this research examines the relationship between list and sale prices. It applies hedonic methods and exploits information on...