IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vrs/offsta/v38y2022i1p319-351n9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Early Real Estate Indicators during the COVID-19 Crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Pfeifer Norbert
  • Steurer Miriam

    (Department of Economics, University of Graz, Universitatsstrasse 15/F4, 8010Graz, Austria.)

Abstract

In this article we construct a number of early housing-market indicators from daily-scraped list-price data and investigate how they inform on housing-market trends prior to the release of official transaction data. We minimize the impact of non-market conform list prices by our data selection- and cleaning routine and thereby improve the overlap between list and transaction data. In addition to some well-known real-estate indicators (price and rent indices, price-rent ratios, market volume, time-on-market, and market turnover) we develop a new market sentiment indicator which we construct from the direction and frequency of online price changes for individual listings. We then use this group of indicators to investigate how housing markets in London and Vienna react to the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020. For London these indicators show high volatility during much of 2020 and we find that the sales and rental markets drift apart: The sales market shows an overall positive price trend, while the rental market becomes significantly weaker after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. For Vienna we find that all indicators signal positive market developments for the first eight months after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Pfeifer Norbert & Steurer Miriam, 2022. "Early Real Estate Indicators during the COVID-19 Crisis," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 38(1), pages 319-351, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:offsta:v:38:y:2022:i:1:p:319-351:n:9
    DOI: 10.2478/jos-2022-0017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2022-0017
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2478/jos-2022-0017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. W. Erwin Diewert & Saeed Heravi & Mick Silver, 2009. "Hedonic Imputation versus Time Dummy Hedonic Indexes," NBER Chapters, in: Price Index Concepts and Measurement, pages 161-196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Genesove, David & Mayer, Christopher J, 1997. "Equity and Time to Sale in the Real Estate Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 255-269, June.
    3. Robert J. Hill & Daniel Melser, 2008. "Hedonic Imputation And The Price Index Problem: An Application To Housing," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(4), pages 593-609, October.
    4. David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260.
    5. Jens Kolbe & Rainer Schulz & Martin Wersing & Axel Werwatz, 2021. "Real estate listings and their usefulness for hedonic regressions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(6), pages 3239-3269, December.
    6. Lippman, Steven A & McCall, John J, 1986. "An Operational Measure of Liquidity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 43-55, March.
    7. Donald R. Haurin & Jessica L. Haurin & Taylor Nadauld & Anthony Sanders, 2010. "List Prices, Sale Prices and Marketing Time: An Application to U.S. Housing Markets," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 38(4), pages 659-685, Winter.
    8. Justin Benefield & William Hardin, 2015. "Does Time-on-Market Measurement Matter?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 52-73, January.
    9. Dorinth W. van Dijk & Marc K. Francke, 2018. "Internet Search Behavior, Liquidity and Prices in the Housing Market," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 46(2), pages 368-403, June.
    10. Robert J. Hill, 2013. "Hedonic Price Indexes For Residential Housing: A Survey, Evaluation And Taxonomy," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 879-914, December.
    11. Engsted, Tom & Pedersen, Thomas Q., 2015. "Predicting returns and rent growth in the housing market using the rent-price ratio: Evidence from the OECD countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 257-275.
    12. Haurin, Donald & McGreal, Stanley & Adair, Alastair & Brown, Louise & Webb, James R., 2013. "List price and sales prices of residential properties during booms and busts," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 1-10.
    13. Elliot Anenberg & Steven Laufer, 2017. "A More Timely House Price Index," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(4), pages 722-734, July.
    14. John R. Knight & C. F. Sirmans & Geoffrey K. Turnbull, 1994. "List price signaling and buyer behavior in the housing market," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, pages 177-195.
    15. W. Erwin Diewert & John S. Greenlees & Charles R. Hulten, 2009. "Price Index Concepts and Measurement," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number diew08-1, March.
    16. Wong, Grace, 2008. "Has SARS infected the property market Evidence from Hong Kong," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 74-95, January.
    17. Lyons, Ronan C., 2019. "Can list prices accurately capture housing price trends? Insights from extreme markets conditions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 228-232.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. de Wit, Erik R. & Englund, Peter & Francke, Marc K., 2013. "Price and transaction volume in the Dutch housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 220-241.
    2. Silver Mick, 2022. "Econometric Issues in Hedonic Property Price Indices: Some Practical Help," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 38(1), pages 153-186, March.
    3. Darren K. Hayunga & R. Kelley Pace, 2017. "List Prices in the US Housing Market," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 155-184, August.
    4. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Heblich, Stephan & Seidel, Tobias, 2023. "Micro-geographic property price and rent indices," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Shimizu, Chihiro & Nishimura, Kiyohiko G. & Watanabe, Tsutomu, 2016. "House prices at different stages of the buying/selling process," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 37-53.
    6. Robert J. Hill & Norbert Pfeifer & Miriam Steurer & Radoslaw Trojanek, 2021. "Warning: Some Transaction Prices can be Detrimental to your House Price Index," Graz Economics Papers 2021-11, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    7. Bruce L. Gordon & Daniel T. Winkler, 2017. "The Effect of Listing Price Changes on the Selling Price of Single-Family Residential Homes," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 185-215, August.
    8. Mick Silver, 2016. "How to Better Measure Hedonic Residential Property Price Indexes," IMF Working Papers 2016/213, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Iqbal A. Syed & Jan De Haan, 2017. "Age, Time, Vintage, And Price Indexes: Measuring The Depreciation Pattern Of Houses," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(1), pages 580-600, January.
    10. Haurin, Donald & McGreal, Stanley & Adair, Alastair & Brown, Louise & Webb, James R., 2013. "List price and sales prices of residential properties during booms and busts," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 1-10.
    11. Chen, Jie & Chen, Yu & Hill, Robert J. & Hu, Pei, 2022. "The user cost of housing and the price-rent ratio in Shanghai," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    12. Esmeralda A. Ramalho & Joaquim J.S. Ramalho, 2014. "Convenient links for the estimation of hedonic price indexes: the case of unique, infrequently traded assets," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 68(2), pages 91-117, May.
    13. Jens Kolbe & Rainer Schulz & Martin Wersing & Axel Werwatz, 2021. "Real estate listings and their usefulness for hedonic regressions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(6), pages 3239-3269, December.
    14. Hyun, Dongwoo & Milcheva, Stanimira, 2018. "Spatial dependence in apartment transaction prices during boom and bust," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 36-45.
    15. Trojanek, Radoslaw & Gluszak, Michal, 2022. "Short-run impact of the Ukrainian refugee crisis on the housing market in Poland," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    16. Josep Maria Raya Vilchez & Aleksander Kucel, 2023. "How fiscal policy affects housing market dynamics: Evidence from Spain," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 323-347, April.
    17. Hans Wolfgang Brachinger & Michael Beer & Olivier Schöni, 2018. "A formal framework for hedonic elementary price indices," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 102(1), pages 67-93, January.
    18. Robert J. Hill & Alicia N. Rambaldi & Michael Scholz, 2021. "Higher frequency hedonic property price indices: a state-space approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 417-441, July.
    19. Robert J. Hill & Michael Scholz & Chihiro Shimizu & Miriam Steurer, 2018. "An evaluation of the methods used by European countries to compute their official house price Indices," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 500-501-5, pages 221-238.
    20. Hill, Robert J. & Trojanek, Radoslaw, 2022. "An evaluation of competing methods for constructing house price indexes: The case of Warsaw," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vrs:offsta:v:38:y:2022:i:1:p:319-351:n:9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciendo.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.