IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedbwp/91-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The measurement and determinants of single-family house prices

Author

Listed:
  • Joe Peek
  • James A. Wilcox

Abstract

We assess the conceptual and empirical features of a number of house price series for the United States. We then calculate a measure of the net upgrading of the existing stock of houses that took place during the 1950-1989 period and adjust price indexes for this net increase in quality. Judgments about the trend, volatility, and determinants of house prices are shown to depend crucially on which price series is used. The Freddie Mac upgrade adjusted house price measure rose 5.7% over the past four decades, falling 7.7% from 1950 through 1970 before rising 14.5% from 1970 through 1989. Real house prices declined in the early 1980s as a result of the increase in real after-tax interest rates and the decline in real materials costs. The recovery of house prices in the late 1980s is attributed to lower unemployment and real after-tax interest rates and particularly to demographic factors associated with the aging of baby boomers.

Suggested Citation

  • Joe Peek & James A. Wilcox, 1991. "The measurement and determinants of single-family house prices," Working Papers 91-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbwp:91-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/wp/wp1991/wp91_7.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Neil Baily & Robert J. Gordon, 1988. "The Productivity Slowdown, Measurement Issues, and the Explosion of Computer Power," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(2), pages 347-432.
    2. James M. Poterba, 1990. "Taxation and Housing Markets: Preliminary Evidence on the Effects of Recent Tax Reforms," NBER Working Papers 3270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Peter Linneman & Susan Wachter, 1989. "The Impacts of Borrowing Constraints on Homeownership," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 17(4), pages 389-402, December.
    4. Palmquist, Raymond B, 1980. "Alternative Techniques for Developing Real Estate Price Indexes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(3), pages 442-448, August.
    5. Richard B. Freeman, 1979. "The Effect of Demographic Factors on Age-Earnings Profiles," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 14(3), pages 289-318.
    6. Joe Peek & James A. Wilcox, 1991. "The Measurement and Determinants of Single‐Family House Prices," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 19(3), pages 353-382, September.
    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. Marschoun, Michael, 2000. "Availability of Mortgage Loans in Volatile Real Estate Markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 443-469, May.
    2. Earl Benson & Julia Hansen & Arthur Schwartz & Greg Smersh, 1999. "Canadian / U.S. Exchange Rates and Nonresident Investors: Their Influence on Residential Property Values," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 18(3), pages 433-462.
    3. Gatzlaff, Dean H. & Haurin, Donald R., 1998. "Sample Selection and Biases in Local House Value Indices," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 199-222, March.
    4. Earl D. Benson & Julia L. Hansen & Arthur L. Schwartz, Jr. & Gregory T. Smersh, 1997. "The Influence of Canadian Investment on U.S. Residential Property Values," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 13(3), pages 231-250.
    5. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde, 2017. "When the opportunity knocks: large structural shocks and gender wage gaps," GRAPE Working Papers 2, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    6. Charles R. Hulten, 1992. "Growth Accounting When Technical Change is Embodied in Capital," NBER Working Papers 3971, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Rady, Sven & Ortalo-Magné, François, 2002. "Homeownership," Discussion Papers in Economics 28, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    8. Patric H. Hendershott & Jesse M. Abraham, 1992. "Patterns and Determinants of Metropolitan House Prices, 1977-91," NBER Working Papers 4196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Robert C. Feenstra & Gordon H. Hanson, "undated". "Productivity Measurement And The Impact Of Trade And Technology On Wages: Estimates For The U.S., 1972-1990," Department of Economics 97-17, California Davis - Department of Economics.
    10. Diane J. Macunovich, 1999. "The fortunes of one's birth: Relative cohort size and the youth labor market in the United States," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(2), pages 215-272.
    11. Trajtenberg, Manuel, 1989. "Product Innovations, Price Indices and the (Mis)Measurement of Economic Performance," Foerder Institute for Economic Research Working Papers 275471, Tel-Aviv University > Foerder Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Philippe Bracke & Christian Hilber & Olmo Silva, 2014. "Homeownership and Entrepreneurship: The Role of Mortgage Debt and Commitment," CESifo Working Paper Series 5048, CESifo.
    13. Gabriel, Stuart A. & Rosenthal, Stuart S., 2005. "Homeownership in the 1980s and 1990s: aggregate trends and racial gaps," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 101-127, January.
    14. Green, Richard K. & Vandell, Kerry D., 1999. "Giving households credit: How changes in the U.S. tax code could promote homeownership," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 419-444, July.
    15. Corrado Carol & Lengermann Paul & Beaulieu J. Joseph & Bartelsman Eric J., 2007. "Sectoral Productivity in the United States: Recent Developments and the Role of IT," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 188-210, May.
    16. David M. Byrne & John G. Fernald & Marshall B. Reinsdorf, 2016. "Does the United States Have a Productivity Slowdown or a Measurement Problem?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 109-182.
    17. Engelhardt, Gary V. & Mayer, Christopher J., 1998. "Intergenerational Transfers, Borrowing Constraints, and Saving Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 135-157, July.
    18. Chunrong Ai & Jonathan Feinstein & Daniel L. McFadden & Henry Pollakowski, 1990. "The Dynamics of Housing Demand by the Elderly: User Cost Effects," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in the Economics of Aging, pages 33-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Abdul Aziz, Ahmad Faizal, 2011. "Causality of Residential Properties Price Movements in Malaysia," MPRA Paper 47682, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Garloff, Alfred & Roth, Duncan, 2016. "Regional age structure and young workers' wages," IAB-Discussion Paper 201606, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Housing;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fip:fedbwp:91-7. 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: Catherine Spozio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbbous.html .

    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.