Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

How well do individuals predict the selling prices of their homes?

Contents:

Author Info

  • Hugo Benítez-Silva
  • Selcuk Eren
  • Frank Heiland
  • Sergi Jiménez-Martín

    ()

Abstract

Self-reported home values are widely used as a measure of housing wealth by researchers employing a variety of data sets and studying a number of different individual and household level decisions. The accuracy of this measure is an open empirical question, and requires some type of market assessment of the values reported. In this research, we study the predictive power of self-reported housing wealth when estimating sales prices utilizing the Health and Retirement Study. We find that homeowners, on average, overestimate the value of their properties by between 5% and 10%. More importantly, we are the first to document a strong correlation between accuracy and the economic conditions at the time of the purchase of the property (measured by the prevalent interest rate, the growth of household income, and the growth of median housing prices). While most individuals overestimate the value of their properties, those who bought during more difficult economic times tend to be more accurate, and in some cases even underestimate the value of their house. These results establish a surprisingly strong, likely permanent, and in many cases long-lived, effect of the initial conditions surrounding the purchases of properties, on how individuals value them. This cyclicality of the overestimation of house prices can provide some explanations for the difficulties currently faced by many homeowners, who were expecting large appreciations in home value to rescue them in case of increases in interest rates which could jeopardize their ability to live up to their financial commitments.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/papers/downloads/1065.pdf
File Function: Whole Paper
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in its series Economics Working Papers with number 1065.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Feb 2008
Date of revision: Apr 2008
Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1065

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.econ.upf.edu/

Related research

Keywords: Self-Reported Housing Values; Housing Prices; Instrumental Variables; Sample Selection; Business Cycle; Interest Rates; Health and Retirement Study;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2008. "The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the 2007 Mortgage Default Crisis," NBER Working Papers 13936, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2002. "Instrumental variables and GMM: Estimation and testing," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 545, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 14 Feb 2003.
  3. Ben S. Bernanke, 1990. "On the predictive power of interest rates and interest rate spreads," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 51-68.
  4. Kam-Ki Tang, 2006. "The wealth effect of housing on aggregate consumption," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 189-193.
  5. Vladimir Klyuev & Paul S. Mills, 2006. "Is Housing Wealth an 'ATM'? The Relationship Between Household Wealth, Home Equity Withdrawal, and Saving Rates," IMF Working Papers 06/162, International Monetary Fund.
  6. Motohiro Yogo, 2004. "Estimating the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution When Instruments Are Weak," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 797-810, August.
  7. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "Housing and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism," NBER Working Papers 13518, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Hugo Benitez-Silva & Debra S. Dwyer & Wayne-Roy Gayle & Tom Muench, 2005. "Expectations in Micro Data: Rationality Revisited," Department of Economics Working Papers 05-04, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
  9. Case, Karl E. & Quigley, John M. & Shiller, Robert J., 2012. "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market versus The Housing Market," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt6px1d1sc, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
  10. John Taylor, 2007. "Housing and Monetary Policy," Discussion Papers 07-003, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
  11. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1983. "Stochastic Consumption, Risk Aversion, and the Temporal Behavior of Asset Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 249-65, April.
  12. Skinner, Jonathan, 1989. "Housing wealth and aggregate saving," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 305-324, May.
  13. Kostas Tsatsaronis & Haibin Zhu, 2004. "What drives housing price dynamics: cross-country evidence," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
  14. Hilary W. Hoynes & Daniel L. McFadden, 1996. "The Impact of Demographics on Housing and Nonhousing Wealth in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Effects of Aging in the United States and Japan, pages 153-194 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  15. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The behavior of home buyers in boom and post-boom markets," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 29-46.
  16. Disney, Richard & Henley, Andrew & Stears, Gary, 2002. "Housing costs, house price shocks and savings behaviour among older households in Britain," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 607-625, September.
  17. John Y. Campbell & João F. Cocco, 2005. "How Do House Prices Affect Consumption? Evidence From Micro Data," NBER Working Papers 11534, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  18. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2007. "Enhanced routines for instrumental variables/GMM estimation and testing," CERT Discussion Papers 0706, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
  19. Englund, P. & Ioannides, Y.M., 1996. "House Price Dynamics: An International Empirical Perspective," Papers 1996-01, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
  20. David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion And Seller Behavior: Evidence From The Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260, November.
  21. Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 2000. "Aging and Housing Equity," NBER Working Papers 7882, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  22. Olsen, Randall J, 1980. "A Least Squares Correction for Selectivity Bias," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(7), pages 1815-20, November.
  23. Richard Disney & Sarah Bridges & John Gathergood, 2006. "Housing Wealth and Household Indebtedness: Is there a Household 'Financial Accelerator'?," Working Papers 2006/12, Czech National Bank, Research Department.
  24. Heckman, James J, 1979. "Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 153-61, January.
  25. Reichert, Alan K, 1990. "The Impact of Interest Rates, Income, and Employment upon Regional Housing Prices," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 373-91, December.
  26. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2006. "Housing Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 12787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  27. James F. Moore & Olivia S. Mitchell, . "Projected Retirement Wealth and Saving Adequacy," Pension Research Council Working Papers 98-1, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
  28. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1998. "Effects of Pensions on Saving: Analysis with Data from the Health and Retirement Study," NBER Working Papers 6681, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  29. Jensen, Peter & Rosholm, Michael & Verner, Mette, 2002. "A Comparison of Different Estimators for Panel Data Sample Selection Models," Working Papers 02-1, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
  30. Goodman, John Jr. & Ittner, John B., 1992. "The accuracy of home owners' estimates of house value," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 339-357, December.
  31. F. Thomas Juster & Joseph P. Lupton & James P. Smith & Frank Stafford, 2004. "The decline in household saving and the wealth effect," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-32, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  32. Hugo Benítez-Silva & Debra S. Dwyer, 2005. "The Rationality of Retirement Expectations and the Role of New Information," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 587-592, August.
  33. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven E. Saks, 2005. "Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2061, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  34. Harris, Jack C, 1989. "The Effect of Real Rates of Interest on Housing Prices," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 47-60, February.
  35. Eric M. Engen & William G. Gale & Cori R. Uccello, 1999. "The Adequacy of Retirement Saving," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 30(2), pages 65-188.
  36. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1995. "Selection corrections for panel data models under conditional mean independence assumptions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 115-132, July.
  37. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
  38. Robert E. Hall, 1988. "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption," NBER Working Papers 0720, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  39. Brian Bucks & Karen Pence, 2006. "Do homeowners know their house values and mortgage terms?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-03, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  40. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-29, October.
  41. Richard Disney & John Gathergood & Andrew Henley, 2010. "House Price Shocks, Negative Equity, and Household Consumption in the United Kingdom," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(6), pages 1179-1207, December.
  42. Patterson, Kerry D & Pesaran, Bahram, 1992. "The Intertemporal Elasticity of Substitution in Consumption in the United States and the United Kingdom," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(4), pages 573-84, November.
  43. Stock, J.H. & Watson, M.W., 1989. "New Indexes Of Coincident And Leading Economic Indicators," Papers 178d, Harvard - J.F. Kennedy School of Government.
  44. Ihlanfeldt, Keith R. & Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge, 1986. "Alternative value estimates of owner-occupied housing: Evidence on sample selection bias and systematic errors," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 356-369, November.
  45. Sumit Agarwal, 2007. "The Impact of Homeowners' Housing Wealth Misestimation on Consumption and Saving Decisions," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 35(2), pages 135-154, 06.
  46. Martin Farnham & Purvi Sevak, 2007. "Housing Wealth and Retirement Timing," Working Papers wp172, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
  47. Benjamin J. Keys & Tanmoy Mukherjee & Amit Seru & Vikrant Vig, 2010. "Did Securitization Lead to Lax Screening? Evidence from Subprime Loans," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 125(1), pages 307-362, February.
  48. Michael Hurd & Monika Reti, 2003. "The Effects of Large Capital Gains on Work and Consumption: Evidence from Four Waves of the HRS," Working Papers 03-14, RAND Corporation Publications Department.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Are people any good at predicting the selling price of their home?
    by Miguel in Simoleon Sense on 2010-08-26 15:07:08
  2. People overvalue their own homes
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2009-01-16 16:00:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Florent Buisson, 2013. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior : Evidence from the Housing Market : Comment Working Paper," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 13005, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
  2. Michael Brocker & Christopher Hanes, 2013. "The 1920s American Real Estate Boom and the Downturn of the Great Depression: Evidence from City Cross Sections," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Kelly, Robert & McCarthy, Yvonne & McQuinn, Kieran, 2011. "Impairment and Negative Equity in the Irish Mortgage Market," Research Technical Papers 9/RT/11, Central Bank of Ireland.
  4. Florent Buisson, 2013. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market: Comment Working Paper," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00786294, HAL.

Lists

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
  1. Economic Logic blog

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1065

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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