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History dependence in the housing market

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  • Bracke, Philippe
  • Tenreyro, Silvana

Abstract

Using data on the universe of housing transactions in England and Wales over a twenty-year period, we document a robust pattern of history dependence in housing markets. Sale prices and selling propensities are affected by house prices prevailing in the period in which properties were previously bought. We investigate the causes of history dependence complementing our analysis with administrative data on mortgages and online house listings, which we match to actual sales. We find that cognitive and financial frictions explain the history dependence in the data. Both contributed to the collapse and slow recovery of the volume of housing transactions in the post-crisis period.

Suggested Citation

  • Bracke, Philippe & Tenreyro, Silvana, 2018. "History dependence in the housing market," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 91690, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:91690
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/91690/
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    Cited by:

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    2. Giacoletti, Marco & Parsons, Christopher A., 2022. "Peak-Bust rental spreads," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 504-526.
    3. Coen, Jamie & Kashyap, Anil & Rostom, May, 2021. "Price discrimination and mortgage choice," Bank of England working papers 926, Bank of England.
    4. Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & David Hume & John Gathergood & George Loewenstein & Neil Stewart, 2023. "At the Top of the Mind: Peak Prices and the Disposition Effect," Discussion Papers 2023-09, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    5. Chakraborty, Chiranjit & Joseph, Andreas, 2017. "Machine learning at central banks," Bank of England working papers 674, Bank of England.
    6. Garbarino, Nicola & Guin, Benjamin & Lee, Jonathan, 2022. "The Effects of Subsidized Flood Insurance on Real Estate Markets," Bank of England working papers 995, Bank of England.
    7. Lamorgese, Andrea R. & Pellegrino, Dario, 2022. "Loss aversion in housing appraisal: Evidence from Italian homeowners," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Jordan Rappaport, 2023. "Home Prices Are Overvalued but Will Decline Only Gradually," Economic Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue February , pages 1-4, February.
    10. Zhou, Tingyu & Clapp, John M & Lu-Andrews, Ran, 2021. "Is the behavior of sellers with expected gains and losses relevant to cycles in house prices?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    housing market; fluctuations; down-payment effects; reference dependence; anchoring; loss aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • 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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