IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedpbr/y2011iq2p20-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding house-price dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Makoto Nakajima

Abstract

For most homeowners, housing is the single most important component of their nonpension wealth. Therefore, a change in house prices greatly affects the total wealth of many households. Furthermore, movements in house prices can affect people’s lives indirectly. For example, the surge in the number of mortgage defaults and foreclosures during the recent recession was triggered in part by a drop in house prices, and this surge damaged the health of the financial institutions that either directly or indirectly owned mortgage loans. In turn, the deteriorating health of the financial sector was one of the factors contributing to the recession. Naturally, for both policymakers and for people who want to make sound financial decisions, it is important to understand how and why house prices move. In “Understanding House-Price Dynamics,” Makoto Nakajima explains a simple theory that helps us better understand house-price dynamics. The theory — called the user cost-rent equivalence — is based on the close relationship between user costs, which are the costs of owning a house for a year, and rents.

Suggested Citation

  • Makoto Nakajima, 2011. "Understanding house-price dynamics," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Q2, pages 20-28.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpbr:y:2011:i:q2:p:20-28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/publications/business-review/2011/q2/brq211_understanding-house-price-dynamics.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wenli Li & Fang Yang, 2010. "American dream or American obsession? The economic benefits and costs of homeownership," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Q3, pages 20-30.
    2. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 67-92, Fall.
    3. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Weil, David N., 1989. "The baby boom, the baby bust, and the housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 235-258, May.
    4. Davis, Morris A. & Heathcote, Jonathan, 2007. "The price and quantity of residential land in the United States," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2595-2620, November.
    5. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Alexander Michaelides & Kalin Nikolov, 2011. "Winners and Losers in Housing Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 255-296, March.
    6. Matthew Chambers & Carlos Garriga & Don E. Schlagenhauf, 2009. "Accounting For Changes In The Homeownership Rate," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(3), pages 677-726, August.
    7. Theodore M. Crone & Leonard I. Nakamura & Richard Voith, 2010. "Rents Have Been Rising, Not Falling, in the Postwar Period," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 628-642, August.
    8. Christopher J. Mayer, 2007. "Understanding recent trends in house prices and homeownership: commentary," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 125-137.
    9. Robert J. Shiller, 2007. "Understanding recent trends in house prices and homeownership," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 89-123.
    10. Monika Piazzesi & Martin Schneider, 2009. "Momentum Traders in the Housing Market: Survey Evidence and a Search Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 406-411, May.
    11. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Pierre-Olivier Weill, 2010. "Why Has House Price Dispersion Gone Up?," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 1567-1606.
    12. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven E. Saks, 2005. "Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 329-333, May.
    13. Otmar Issing, 2007. "Understanding recent trends in house prices and homeownership: general discussion," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 139-148.
    14. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Alexander Michaelides & Kalin Nikolov, 2010. "Winners and Losers in House Markets," Working Papers 2010-5, Central Bank of Cyprus.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kivedal, Bjørnar Karlsen, 2013. "Testing for rational bubbles in the US housing market," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 369-381.
    2. Beatrice D. Simo-Kengne & Rangan Gupta & Goodness C. Aye, 2013. "Macro Shocks And House Prices In South Africa," Working Papers 201302, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Households - Economic aspects;

    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:fedpbr:y:2011:i:q2:p:20-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Beth Paul). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/frbphus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.