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Do households use home‐ownership to insure themselves? Evidence across U.S. cities

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  • Michael Amior
  • Jonathan Halket

Abstract

Are households more likely to be homeowners when “housing risk” is higher? We show that home‐ownership rates and loan‐to‐value (LTV) ratios at the city level are strongly negatively correlated with local house price volatility. However, causal inference is confounded by house price levels, which are systematically correlated with housing risk in an intuitive way: in cities where the land value is larger relative to the local cost of structures, house prices are higher and more volatile. We disentangle the contributions of high price levels from high volatilities by building a life‐cycle model of home‐ownership choices. We find that higher price levels can explain most of the lower home‐ownership. Higher risk in the model leads to slightly lower home‐ownership and LTV ratios in high land value cities. The relationship between LTV and risk is corroborated by LTV's negative correlation with price volatility in the data and highlights the importance of including other means of incomplete insurance in models of home‐ownership.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Amior & Jonathan Halket, 2014. "Do households use home‐ownership to insure themselves? Evidence across U.S. cities," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 5(3), pages 631-674, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:quante:v:5:y:2014:i:3:p:631-674
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    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan Halket & Lars Nesheim & Florian Oswald, 2015. "The housing stock, housing prices, and user costs: the roles of location, structure and unobserved quality," CeMMAP working papers CWP73/15, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    2. Yuliya Demyanyk & Dmytro Hryshko & María Jose Luengo-Prado & Bent E. Sørensen, 2017. "Moving to a Job: The Role of Home Equity, Debt, and Access to Credit," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 149-181, April.
    3. Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Ng, Joe Cho Yiu, 2018. "Macro Aspects of Housing," MPRA Paper 93512, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Jonathan Halket & Lars Nesheim & Florian Oswald, 2020. "The Housing Stock, Housing Prices, And User Costs: The Roles Of Location, Structure, And Unobserved Quality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1777-1814, November.
    5. Serafin J. Grundl & You Suk Kim, 2019. "The Marginal Effect of Government Mortgage Guarantees on Homeownership," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-027, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Yuliya Demyanyk & Dmytro Hryshko & Maria Jose Luengo-Prado & Bent E. Sorensen, 2016. "Moving to a new job: the role of home equity, debt, and access to credit," Working Papers 16-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    7. Halket, Jonathan R & Vasudev, Santhanagopalan, 2012. "Home Ownership, Savings, and Mobility Over The Life Cycle," Economics Discussion Papers 2876, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    8. Mika Kortelainen & Tuukka Saarimaa, 2012. "Do Homeowners Benefit Urban Neighborhoods? Evidence from Housing Prices," SERC Discussion Papers 0110, Spatial Economics Research Centre, LSE.
    9. John Gathergood & Joerg Weber, 2015. "Is Poor Financial Literacy a Barrier to Home Ownership?," Discussion Papers 2015/16, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    10. Halket, Jonathan R & Pignatti, Matteo, 2012. "Housing tenure choices with private information," Economics Discussion Papers 8961, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    11. Meta Brown & Sarah Stein & Basit Zafar, 2015. "The Impact of Housing Markets on Consumer Debt: Credit Report Evidence from 1999 to 2012," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(S1), pages 175-213, March.
    12. Jonathan Halket & Santhanagopalan Vasudev, 2014. "Saving Up or Settling Down: Home Ownership over the Life Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), pages 345-366, April.
    13. Gathergood, John & Weber, Jörg, 2017. "Financial literacy: A barrier to home ownership for the young?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 62-78.
    14. Davis, Morris A. & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2015. "Housing, Finance, and the Macroeconomy," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.),Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 753-811, Elsevier.
    15. Anson T. Y. Ho & Jie Zhou, 2016. "Housing and Tax-Deferred Retirement Accounts," Staff Working Papers 16-24, Bank of Canada.
    16. Damianov, Damian S & Escobari, Diego, 2019. "Getting on and moving up the property ladder: Real hedging in the U.S. housing market before and after the crisis," MPRA Paper 92389, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Halket, Jonathan & Pignatti Morano di Custoza, Matteo, 2015. "Homeownership and the scarcity of rentals," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 107-123.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

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