IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v116y2001i4p1233-1260..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market

Author

Listed:
  • David Genesove
  • Christopher Mayer

Abstract

Data from downtown Boston in the 1990s show that loss aversion determines seller behavior in the housing market. Condominium owners subject to nominal losses 1) set higher asking prices of 25–35 percent of the difference between the property's expected selling price and their original purchase price; 2) attain higher selling prices of 3–18 percent of that difference; and 3) exhibit a much lower sale hazard than other sellers. The list price results are twice as large for owneroccupants as investors, but hold for both. These findings suggest that sellers are averse to realizing (nominal) losses and help explain the positive price-volume correlation in real estate markets.

Suggested Citation

  • David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:116:y:2001:i:4:p:1233-1260.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/003355301753265561
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francois Ortalo-Magne & Sven Rady, 1998. "Housing Market Fluctuations in a Life-Cycle Economy with Credit Constraints," Finance 9810003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    3. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Genesove, David & Mayer, Christopher J, 1997. "Equity and Time to Sale in the Real Estate Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 255-269, June.
    5. Loewenstein, George F & Sicherman, Nachum, 1991. "Do Workers Prefer Increasing Wage Profiles?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 67-84, January.
    6. Jeremy C. Stein, 1995. "Prices and Trading Volume in the Housing Market: A Model with Down-Payment Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 379-406.
    7. David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260.
    8. Eldar Shafir & Peter Diamond & Amos Tversky, 1997. "Money Illusion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 341-374.
    9. Shapira, Zur & Venezia, Itzhak, 2001. "Patterns of behavior of professionally managed and independent investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 1573-1587, August.
    10. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1980. "Selection of Regressors," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 21(2), pages 331-354, June.
    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. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    2. Gary Engelhardt, 2001. "Nominal Loss Aversion, Housing Equity Constraints, and Household Mobility: Evidence from the United States," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 42, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    3. Barberis, Nicholas & Xiong, Wei, 2012. "Realization utility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 251-271.
    4. Einiö, Mikko & Kaustia, Markku & Puttonen, Vesa, 2008. "Price setting and the reluctance to realize losses in apartment markets," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 19-34, February.
    5. Steffen Andersen & Cristian Badarinza & Lu Liu & Julie Marx & Tarun Ramadorai, 2022. "Reference Dependence in the Housing Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(10), pages 3398-3440, October.
    6. 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.
    7. Yuval Arbel & Danny Ben-Shahar & Eyal Sulganik, 2009. "Mean Reversion and Momentum: Another Look at the Price-Volume Correlation in the Real Estate Market," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 316-335, October.
    8. François Ortalo-Magné & Sven Rady, 2006. "Housing Market Dynamics: On the Contribution of Income Shocks and Credit Constraints ," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(2), pages 459-485.
    9. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten & Meyer, Steffen & Hackethal, Andreas, 2019. "Taming models of prospect theory in the wild? Estimation of Vlcek and Hens (2011)," SAFE Working Paper Series 146, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2019.
    10. Elsby, Michael W.L., 2009. "Evaluating the economic significance of downward nominal wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 154-169, March.
    11. Meng, Charlotte C., 2023. "The price paid: Heuristic thinking and biased reference points in the housing market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    12. Gan, Li & Wang, Pengfei & Zhang, Qinghua, 2018. "Market thickness and the impact of unemployment on housing market outcomes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 27-49.
    13. Jim Clayton & Norman Miller & Liang Peng, 2010. "Price-volume Correlation in the Housing Market: Causality and Co-movements," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 14-40, January.
    14. Grace Wong, 2004. "Has SARS Infected the Property Market? Evidence from Hong Kong," Working Papers 11, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    15. Yong Tu & Seow Ong & Ying Han, 2009. "Turnovers and Housing Price Dynamics: Evidence from Singapore Condominium Market," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 254-274, April.
    16. McCoy, Shawn J. & Walsh, Randall P., 2018. "Wildfire risk, salience & housing demand," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 203-228.
    17. Robert Edelstein & Wenlan Qian, 2014. "Short-Term Buyers and Housing Market Dynamics," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 654-689, November.
    18. Anenberg, Elliot, 2011. "Loss aversion, equity constraints and seller behavior in the real estate market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 67-76, January.
    19. repec:pri:indrel:dsp0141687h476 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Grinblatt, Mark & Han, Bing, 2005. "Prospect theory, mental accounting, and momentum," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 311-339, November.
    21. Satakhun Kosavinta & Donyaprueth Krairit & Do Ba Khang, 2017. "Decision making in the pre-development stage of residential development," Journal of Property Investment & Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(2), pages 160-183, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand

    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:oup:qjecon:v:116:y:2001:i:4:p:1233-1260.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    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.