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The 1920s American Real Estate Boom and the Downturn of the Great Depression: Evidence from City Cross-Sections

In: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective

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  • Michael Brocker
  • Christopher Hanes

Abstract

In the 1929-1933 downturn of the Great Depression, house values and homeownership rates fell more, and mortgage foreclosure rates were higher, in cities that had experienced relatively high rates of house construction in the residential real-estate boom of the mid-1920s. Across the 1920s, boom cities had seen the biggest increases in house values and homeownership rates. These patterns suggest that the mid-1920s boom contributed to the depth of the Great Depression through wealth and financial effects of falling house values. Also, they are very similar to cross-sectional patterns across metro areas around 2006.
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  • Michael Brocker & Christopher Hanes, 2014. "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, pages 161-201, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:12798
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    3. Richard Whittle & Thomas Davies & Matthew Gobey & John Simister, 2014. "Behavioural Economics and House Prices: A Literature Review," Business and Management Horizons, Macrothink Institute, vol. 2(2), pages 15-28, December.
    4. Calomiris, Charles W. & Jaremski, Matthew, 2023. "Florida (Un)chained," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    5. Gustavo S Cortes & Marc D Weidenmier, 2019. "Stock Volatility and the Great Depression," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(9), pages 3544-3570.
    6. Fishback, Price & Fleitas, Sebastian & Rose, Jonathan & Snowden, Ken, 2020. "Collateral Damage: The Impact of Foreclosures on New Home Mortgage Lending in the 1930s," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(3), pages 853-885, September.
    7. Price Fishback & Trevor Kollmann, 2014. "New Multicity Estimates of the Changes in Home Values, 1920-1940," NBER Chapters, in: Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 203-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Jonathan D. Rose, 2018. "Contract Choice in the Interwar US Residential Mortgage Market," Working Paper Series WP-2018-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    9. Zheng Zheng Li & Chi-Wei Su, 2023. "How does real estate market react to the iron ore boom in Australian capital cities?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 71(2), pages 517-537, October.
    10. Heather Boushey, 2020. "Unbound: Releasing Inequality’s Grip on Our Economy," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 597-609, December.
    11. Rose, Jonathan, 2021. "Short-term residential mortgage contracts in American economic history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Quincy, Sarah, 2022. "Income shocks and housing spillovers: Evidence from the World War I Veterans’ Bonus," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    13. Anna Scherbina & Bernd Schlusche, 2012. "Asset Bubbles: an Application to Residential Real Estate," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 18(3), pages 464-491, June.
    14. Gueye, Ghislain Nono, 2021. "Pitfalls in the cointegration analysis of housing prices with the macroeconomy: Evidence from OECD countries," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    15. Jonathan D. Rose, 2022. "Reassessing the magnitude of housing price declines and the use of leverage in the Depressions of the 1890s and 1930s," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(4), pages 907-930, December.
    16. Kohl, Sebastian, 2018. "A small history of the homeownership ideal," MPIfG Discussion Paper 18/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    17. Siodla, James, 2020. "Debt and taxes: Fiscal strain and US city budgets during the Great Depression," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations
    • N22 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • 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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