House Price Methodology

This booklet discusses some major methodological issues relating to the construction of house price models on a macro level. There is no single method that always produces the optimal results; the choice of a particular approach, method, theory, model and technique is context-dependent. This is especially true in housing markets, where a multitude of different submarkets exist. The methodology chosen should be based on sound theory, from which the basic concepts of analysis can be derived. This booklet discusses the use of potential models, which can be constructed using a general field theory, and which act as a theoretical foundation for further analysis. If we use potential models for house price analysis we can discover additional features from the data set that other approaches would simply miss. This e-book presents a pragmatic overview of key methodological concerns with the emphasis on the use of potential models. Theoretical methodological questions are left unanswered, and are not even presented in this text, since they have little relevancy to real-world modelling questions.

This book contains a special issue of the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, comprising thirteen articles on house price measurement. These articles address the various procedures used to compute cross-sectional or temporal house price indices. Specifically, these articles contain research that: (1) evaluates hedonic, repeat sales, or hybrid approaches to constructing house price indices; (2) evaluates alternative sources of data on house prices and corresponding housing characteristics; (3) identifies the most influential land, structural, neighborhood, and proximity determinants of house prices (and associated changes in house prices); (4) provides a methodology for identifying housing market segments; (5) incorporates spatial autocorrelation in house price indices; and (6) provides more accurate estimates of the variance in house prices.

This Handbook provides, for the first time, comprehensive guidelines for the compilation of Residential Property Price Indexes and explains in depth the methods and best practices used to calculate an RPPI.

This book answers the question of how exactly property price indexes should be constructed. The formation and collapse of property bubbles has had a profound impact on the economic administration of many nations. The property price bubble that began around the mid-1980s in Japan has been called the 20th century's biggest bubble. In its aftermath, the country faced a period of long-term economic stagnation dubbed the "lost decade." Sweden and the United States have also faced collapses of property bubbles in the 20th and early 21st centuries, respectively. It has been pointed out that the "information gap" that existed between policy-making authorities and the property (including housing) and financial markets was a problem. In 2009, the IMF proposed the creation of a housing price index to the G20 in order to fill this information gap, and the proposal was adopted. Furthermore, in 2011, it was suggested that the next economic crisis would be caused by a bubble in commercial property prices, and it was decided to create a commercial property index as well. This book provides practical examples of how the theory of property price indexes can be applied to the issues of property as a non-homogenous good and a technological and environmental change.

This book is a timely assessment of 20 years of progress in the field of housing economics and its application to policy and practice. Two decades on from the publication of Duncan Maclennan's influential Housing Economics, 16 leading housing experts - both academics and policy makers from across the world - now honour Maclennan's contributions. The chapters here present a contemporary survey of key issues in housing, from urban housing markets and sub-market modelling, to the economics of social housing, the basis for housing planning, economic analysis of neighbourhoods, and the connections between academic work and policy development. For students, researchers and practitioners in housing, urban economics and social policy, Housing Economics and Public Policy: . provides up to date and comprehensive reviews of major areas of the housing economics literature . sheds light on the economic, social and spatial processes that affect housing . includes discussion of major areas of cutting edge housing economics research and identifies continuing gaps . presents a synthesis of housing economics research on both sides of the Atlantic . assesses the impact of theory on policy and practice

This paper discusses the limitations of the price-income ratio, the price-rent ratio, and of affordability measures as indicators of housing market conditions. For the purpose of assessing whether house prices are misaligned, the most sensible approach is to calculate the user cost of ownership and the implied theoretical ratio of house prices to rents, and compare the latter with the observed ratio. On the basis of this methodology, US house prices appear to have departed from fundamentals since 2004, cumulating an overvaluation of between 25 and 30 per cent by the third quarter of 2006.

A key element in the build-up to the global recession and subsequently was the movement in house price indexes (HPIs). These indexes are particularly prone to methodological and coverage differences which can undermine both within-country and cross-country economic analysis. The paper outlines key measurement issues and reports on empirical work using an international panel data set that (i) considers whether differences in HPI measurement matter and, if so, in what way, and (ii) revisits the measurement of global house price inflation and the modeling of the determinants of house price inflation using HPIs corrected for differences in measurement practice.

This book presents the essential ideas of the field theory of house prices. This theory combines some fundamental concepts of classical physics and standard economics, providing a new, alternative way of thinking about house prices. In the field theory of house prices a new concept of analysis is defined: house prices by distance from the CBD (Central Business District). In traditional neoclassical economics, house prices are analysed directly without including the location element of a house. The field theory, however, takes location explicitly into account by analysing house prices divided by the distance from the CBD. The main ideas of the field theory are also applicable to the land markets and facilities markets, where location plays a significant role in the analysis of property prices. The author is a Doctor of Science (Technology), whose research interest focuses on applied mathematics and economics.

Measuring house prices is essential to all economies, but researchers continue to disagree on the best approach to constructing real estate indices. This book argues the need for more accurate house price indices, outlines the methods used to construct indices and discusses the existing house price indices around the globe. It shows how the raw