This paper examines the effects of seller uncertainty over their home value on the housing market. Using evidence from a new dataset on home listings and transactions, I first show that sellers do not have full information about current period demand conditions for their homes. I incorporate...

Housing demand stimulus produces a multiplier effect by freeing up owners attempting to sell their current home, allowing them to re-enter the market as buyers and triggering a chain of further transactions. Exploiting a shock to first-time home buyer demand caused by the 2015 surprise cut in...

Using listings data, we construct a new repeat-sales house price index that describes house values at the contract date when the price is determined rather than the closing date when the property is transferred. We show that this difference in timing helps explain several puzzles about house...

We provide evidence that the persistence of the large number of local bank branches across the country may be due to the fact that both depositors and small businesses continue to value local bank branches

In this note, we first discuss why markets for mortgage originations are likely to be national in scope. We then show that even if mortgage markets were local, they would be unconcentrated. Finally, we test for an empirical relationship between the local concentration of mortgage lending and...

The contrast between the labor market and house prices during the pandemic has been stark. In this note, we document a strong positive relationship between forbearance takeup and house price growth at the county level, controlling for the unemployment rate and other factors

We construct a new "list-price index" that uses the repeat-sales approach to measure house prices but for recent months uses listings data instead of transactions data. Because listings data describe the current offering price and are available essentially in real time, our index is more timely...

This paper presents new empirical evidence that internal movement - selling one home and buying another - by existing homeowners within a metropolitan housing market is especially volatile and the main driver of fluctuations in transaction volume over the housing market cycle. We develop a...