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Buying First or Selling First in Housing Markets

Author

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  • Espen R Moen
  • Plamen T Nenov
  • Florian Sniekers

Abstract

Housing transactions by moving homeowners take two steps—buying a new house and selling the old one. This paper argues that the transaction sequence decisions of moving homeowners have important effects on the housing market. Moving homeowners prefer to buy first whenever there are more buyers than sellers in the market. However, this congests the buyer side of the market and increases the buyer–seller ratio, further strengthening the incentives of other moving owners to buy first. This endogenous strategic complementarity leads to multiple steady state equilibria and large fluctuations, which are broadly consistent with stylized facts about the housing cycle.

Suggested Citation

  • Espen R Moen & Plamen T Nenov & Florian Sniekers, 2021. "Buying First or Selling First in Housing Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 38-81.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jeurec:v:19:y:2021:i:1:p:38-81.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeea/jvz069
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ngai, Liwa Rachel & Sheedy, Kevin, 2020. "The Ins and Outs of Selling Houses: Understanding Housing Market Volatility," CEPR Discussion Papers 14331, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Elliot Anenberg & Daniel R. Ringo, 2019. "The Propagation of Demand Shocks Through Housing Markets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-084, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Tse, Chung-Yi, 2017. "Flipping in the housing market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 232-263.
    4. Jan Eeckhout & Ilse Lindenlaub, 2019. "Unemployment Cycles," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 175-234, October.
    5. Espen R Moen & Plamen T Nenov & Florian Sniekers, 2021. "Buying First or Selling First in Housing Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 38-81.
    6. Ilse Lindenlaub, 2015. "Unemployment Cycles," 2015 Meeting Papers 1368, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Alina Arefeva, 2016. "How Auctions Amplify House-Price Fluctuations," 2016 Meeting Papers 714, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Antonia Díaz & Belén Jerez & Juan Pablo Rincón-Zapatero, 2023. "Housing Prices and Credit Constraints in Competitive Search," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(657), pages 220-270.
    9. Elliot Anenberg & Patrick Bayer, 2020. "Endogenous Sources Of Volatility In Housing Markets: The Joint Buyer–Seller Problem," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1195-1228, August.
    10. Liberati, Danilo & Loberto, Michele, 2019. "Taxation and housing markets with search frictions," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    11. Randall Wright & Philipp Kircher & Benoit Julîen & Veronica Guerrieri, 2017. "Directed Search: A Guided Tour," NBER Working Papers 23884, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Lawrence Kryzanowski & Yanting Wu & Tingyu Zhou, 2023. "Conflicts of interest and agent heterogeneity in buyer brokerage," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(1), pages 130-169, January.
    13. Erlend Eide Bø, 2019. "Buy to let. Investment buyers in a housing search model," Discussion Papers 896, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    14. Badarinza, Cristian & Ramadorai, Tarun & Siljander, Juhana & Tripathy, Jagdish, 2024. "Behavioral lock-in: aggregate implications of reference dependence in the housing market," Bank of England working papers 1054, Bank of England.
    15. Eric Smith & Zoe Xie & Lei Fang, 2022. "The Short and the Long of It: Stock-Flow Matching in the US Housing Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 10035, CESifo.
    16. Yu Zhu & Randall Wright & Damien Gaumont, 2017. "Modeling House Prices," 2017 Meeting Papers 744, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

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