Explaining changes in house prices

Against the backdrop of sharply lower global equity prices, an important question facing policymakers is the outlook for consumer spending.2 The exact relationship between changes in household wealth and consumer spending is uncertain. Even so, the recent large declines in equity prices are likely to be a depressing influence on consumer spending in the future. Offsetting this effect is the strong recent growth in house prices in a number of countries. Academic research has documented an important influence of housing wealth on consumer behaviour.3 The outlook for consumer spending, therefore, also depends on the future course of house prices. Presumably, a continuation of the global economic slowdown would slow the growth in house prices. Yet, house prices could also come under pressure even in the absence of a further slowdown in economic activity if stock market wealth is an important determinant of the demand for housing. This special feature examines the extent to which house price fluctuations in six advanced economies – the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands and Australia – can be attributed to fluctuations in national incomes, interest rates and stock prices. To this end, the joint behaviour of house prices, national incomes, real interest rates and stock prices is studied within the context of a simple empirical model. The empirical framework permits one to identify the typical response of house prices to changes in a small set of key determinants and also to examine the extent to which house prices have tended to deviate from the values predicted by them. Interesting results emerge from the analysis. For instance, the empirical results indicate that shocks to national income, stock prices and interest rates influence house prices, and that some of the recent large gains in house prices can be explained in terms of the favourable economic developments captured by these variables.