We examine whether agency issues due to asymmetric information affect the cost-effectiveness of subsidy programs for energy efficiency investments. In 2009, the Flemish government introduced a reduction in the property tax of 20% to 40% for energy efficient houses. Exploiting the notch to...

Hedonic house price indices adjust the average sales prices for the change in the quality of the property sold over time. This paper proposes a framework to disentangle the contribution of each individual dwelling characteristic to this quality change. We apply our framework to a unique dataset...

In many countries, house prices are overvalued according to price-to-income ratios. We propose that the borrower s ability to pay through a mortgage is a long-run house price fundamental and find convincing evidence by means of cointegration tests, granger causality, and an elasticity of house...

After a decade under federal control, the Belgian regions became responsible for the mortgage interest and capital deduction (MICD) in 2015. One region drastically reduced the average subsidy while another left it unaffected. Exploiting this variation in a difference in differences design, we...

Hedonic house price indices adjust the average sales prices for the change in the quality of the property sold over time. This paper proposes a framework to disentangle the contribution of each individual dwelling characteristic to this quality change. We apply our framework to a unique dataset...

Many households have only one major asset, a house, which is usually financed through a mortgage contract. One of the most important financial decisions a household has to make is therefore the choice of mortgage type. These can be broadly described as falling into one of two categories: the...

I construct a quality-adjusted hedonic house price index for Flanders from 2005q1 until 2021q2. I use data from a large franchise network of real estate brokers with transactions from 37,850 houses and 12,200 apartments. The results indicate that the average yearly nominal house price growth was...