Housing Dynamics

The key stylized facts of the housing market are positive serial correlation of price changes at one year frequencies and mean reversion over longer periods, strong persistence in construction, and highly volatile prices and construction levels within markets. We calibrate a dynamic model of housing in the spatial equilibrium tradition of Rosen and Roback to see whether such a model can generate these facts. With reasonable parameter values, this model readily explains the mean reversion of prices over five year periods, but cannot explain the observed positive serial correlation at higher frequencies. The model predicts the positive serial correlation of new construction that we see in the data and the volatility of both prices and quantities in the typical market, but not the volatility of the nation's more extreme markets. The strong serial correlation in annual house price changes and the high volatility of prices in coastal markets are the two biggest housing market puzzles. More research is needed to determine whether measurement error-related data smoothing or market inefficiency can best account for the persistence of high frequency price changes. The best rational explanations of the volatility in high cost markets are shocks to interest rates and unobserved income shocks.

Urban Decline and Durable Housing

People continue to live in many big American cities, because in those cities housing costs less than new construction. While cities may lose their productive edge, their houses remain and population falls only when housing depreciates. This paper presents a simple durable housing model of urban decline with several implications which document: (1) urban growth rates are leptokurtotic— cities grow more quickly than they decline, (2) city growth rates are highly persistent, especially amount declining cities, (3) positive shocks increase population more than they increase housing prices, (4) negative shocks decrease housing prices more than they decrease population, (5) the relationship between changes in housing prices and changes in population is strongly concave, and (6) declining cities attract individuals with low levels of human capital.

Arbitrage in Housing Markets

Urban economists understand housing prices with a spatial equilibrium approach that assumes people must be indifferent across locations. Since the spatial no arbitrage condition is inherently imprecise, other economists have turned to different no arbitrage conditions, such as the prediction that individuals must be indifferent between owning and renting. This paper argues the predictions from these non-spatial, financial no arbitrage conditions are also quite imprecise. Owned homes are extremely different from rental units and owners are quite different from renters. The unobserved costs of home owning such as maintenance are also quite large. Furthermore, risk aversion and the high volatility of housing pries compromise short-term attempts to arbitrage by delaying home buying. We conclude that housing cannot be understood with a narrowly financial approach that ignores space any more than it can be understood with a narrowly spatial approach that ignores asset markets.

The impact of building restrictions on housing affordability

This paper was presented at the conference "Policies to Promote Affordable Housing," cosponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, February 7, 2002. It was part of Session 2: Affordable Housing and the Housing Market.Housing - Finance ; Housing - Prices ; Land use ; Construction industry ; Local government

Urban Decline and Durable Housing

People continue to live in many big American cities, because in those cities housing costs less than new construction. While cities may lose their productive edge, their houses remain and population falls only when housing depreciates. This paper presents a simple durable housing model of urban decline with several implications which document: (1) urban growth rates are leptokurtotic -- cities grow more quickly than they decline, (2) city growth rates are highly persistent, especially amount declining cities, (3) positive shocks increase population more than they increase housing prices, (4) negative shocks decrease housing prices more than they decrease population, (5) the relationship between changes in housing prices and changes in population is strongly concave, and (7) declining cities attract individuals with low levels of human capital.

The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability

Does America face an affordable housing crisis and, if so, why? This paper argues that in much of America the price of housing is quite close to the marginal, physical costs of new construction. The price of housing is significantly higher than construction costs only in a limited number of areas, such as California and some eastern cities. In those areas, we argue that high prices have little to do with conventional models with a free market for land. Instead, our evidence suggests that zoning and other land use controls, play the dominant role in making housing expensive.

Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?

Since 1950, housing prices have risen regularly by almost two percent per year. Between 1950 and 1970, this increase reflects rising housing quality and construction costs. Since 1970, this increase reflects the increasing difficulty of obtaining regulatory approval for building new homes. In this paper, we present a simple model of regulatory approval that suggests a number of explanations for this change including changing judicial tastes, decreasing ability to bribe regulators, rising incomes and greater tastes for amenities, and improvements in the ability of homeowners to organize and influence local decisions. Our preliminary evidence suggests that there was a significant increase in the ability of local residents to block new projects and a change of cities from urban growth machines to homeowners' cooperatives.

Why is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in House Prices

In Manhattan and elsewhere, housing prices have soared over the 1990s. Rising incomes, lower interest rates, and other factors can explain the demand side of this increase, but some sluggishness on the supply of apartment buildings also is needed to account for the high and rising prices. In a market dominated by high rises, the marginal cost of supplying more space is reflected in the cost of adding an extra floor to any new building. Home building is a highly competitive industry with almost no natural barriers to entry, yet prices in Manhattan currently appear to be more than twice their supply costs. We argue that land use restrictions are the natural explanation of this gap. We also present evidence consistent with our hypothesis that regulation is constraining the supply of housing so that increased demand leads to much higher prices, not many more units, in a number of other high price housing markets across the country.

Why is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in House Prices

In Manhattan and elsewhere, housing prices have soared over the 1990s. Rising incomes, lower interest rates, and other factors can explain the demand side of this increase, but some sluggishness on the supply of apartment buildings also is needed to account for the high and rising prices. In a market dominated by high rises, the marginal cost of supplying more space is reflected in the cost of adding an extra floor to any new building. Home building is a highly competitive industry with almost no natural barriers to entry, yet prices in Manhattan currently appear to be more than twice their supply costs. We argue that land use restrictions are the natural explanation of this gap. We also present evidence consistent with our hypothesis that regulation is constraining the supply of housing so that increased demand leads to much higher prices, not many more units, in a number of other high price housing markets across the country.

Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?

Since 1950, housing prices have risen regularly by almost two percent per year. Between 1950 and 1970, this increase reflects rising housing quality and construction costs. Since 1970, this increase reflects the increasing difficulty of obtaining regulatory approval for building new homes. In this paper, we present a simple model of regulatory approval that suggests a number of explanations for this change including changing judicial tastes, decreasing ability to bribe regulators, rising incomes and greater tastes for amenities, and improvements in the ability of homeowners to organize and influence local decisions. Our preliminary evidence suggests that there was a significant increase in the ability of local residents to block new projects and a change of cities from urban growth machines to homeowners’ cooperatives.