IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bca/bocawp/12-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fooled by Search: Housing Prices, Turnover and Bubbles

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Peterson

Abstract

This paper develops and estimates a model to explain the behaviour of house prices in the United States. The main finding is that over 70% of the increase in house prices relative to trend during the increase of house prices in the United States from 1995 to 2006 can be explained by a pricing mechanism where market participants are ‘Fooled by Search.’ Trading frictions, also known as search frictions, have been argued to affect asset prices, so that asset markets are constrained efficient, with shocks to liquidity causing prices to temporarily deviate from long run fundamentals. In this paper a model is proposed and estimated that combines search frictions with a behavioural assumption where market participants incorrectly believe that the efficient market theory holds. In other words, households are ‘Fooled by Search.’ Such a model is potentially fruitful because it can replicate the observation that real price growth and turnover are highly correlated at an annual frequency in the United States housing market. A linearized version of the model is estimated using standard OLS and annual data. In addition to explaining over 70% of the housing bubble in the United States, the model also predicts and estimation confirms that in regions with a low elasticity of supply, price growth should be more sensitive to turnover. Using the lens of turnover, a supply shock is identified and estimated that has been responsible for over 80% of the fall in real house prices from the peak in 2006 to 2010.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Peterson, 2012. "Fooled by Search: Housing Prices, Turnover and Bubbles," Staff Working Papers 12-3, Bank of Canada.
  • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:12-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/wp2012-03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antonia Díaz & Belén Jerez, 2013. "House Prices, Sales, And Time On The Market: A Search‐Theoretic Framework," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 837-872, August.
    2. Mark Andrew & Geoffrey Meen, 2003. "House Price Appreciation, Transactions and Structural Change in the British Housing Market: A Macroeconomic Perspective," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 31(1), pages 99-116, March.
    3. Díaz, Antonia & Jerez, Belén, 2010. "House prices, sales, and time on the market : a search-theoretic framework," UC3M Working papers. Economics we1033, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    4. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The housing bubble: fooled by efficiency
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-02-22 21:11:00

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Gaetano Lisi, 2013. "On the Functional Form of the Hedonic Price Function: A Matching-theoretic Model and Empirical Evidence," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 16(2), pages 189-207.
    2. Gaetano Lisi, 2013. "Matching Models and Housing Markets: the Role of the Zero-Profit Condition," Economic Research Guardian, Mutascu Publishing, vol. 3(1), pages 54-60, June.
    3. Masanori Kashiwagi, 2014. "Sunspots and Self-Fulfilling Beliefs in the U.S. Housing Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 654-676, October.
    4. Duncan Maclennan & Anthony O’Sullivan, 2012. "Housing markets, signals and search," Journal of Property Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 324-340, July.
    5. Narayan Bulusu & Jefferson Duarte & Carles Vergara-Alert, 2013. "Booms and Busts in House Prices Explained by Constraints in Housing Supply," Staff Working Papers 13-18, Bank of Canada.
    6. Garner, Thesia I. & Verbrugge, Randal, 2009. "Reconciling user costs and rental equivalence: Evidence from the US consumer expenditure survey," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 172-192, September.
    7. Pascal Towbin & Mr. Sebastian Weber, 2015. "Price Expectations and the U.S. Housing Boom," IMF Working Papers 2015/182, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Han, Lu & Strange, William C., 2015. "The Microstructure of Housing Markets," 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 813-886, Elsevier.

    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. de Wit, Erik R. & Englund, Peter & Francke, Marc K., 2013. "Price and transaction volume in the Dutch housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 220-241.
    2. Huifu Nong, 2024. "Integration and risk transmission across supply, demand, and prices in China’s housing market," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1-28, June.
    3. L. Rachel Ngai & Silvana Tenreyro, 2014. "Hot and Cold Seasons in the Housing Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 3991-4026, December.
    4. L. Rachel Ngai & Kevin D. Sheedy, 2024. "The Ins And Outs Of Selling Houses: Understanding Housing‐Market Volatility," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(3), pages 1415-1440, August.
    5. Conefrey, Thomas & Whelan, Karl, 2012. "Supply, Demand and Prices in the US Housing Market," Research Technical Papers 08/RT/12, Central Bank of Ireland.
    6. Eric Smith & Zoe Xie & Lei Fang, 2022. "The Short and the Long of It: Stock-Flow Matching in the US Housing Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 10035, CESifo.
    7. Bielecki, Marcin & Stähler, Nikolai, 2022. "Labor Tax Reductions In Europe: The Role Of Property Taxation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 419-451, March.
    8. Allen Head & Huw Lloyd-Ellis & Hongfei Sun, 2014. "Search, Liquidity, and the Dynamics of House Prices and Construction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1172-1210, April.
    9. Antonia Díaz & Belén Jerez & Juan Pablo Rincón-Zapatero, 2024. "Housing Prices and Credit Constraints in Competitive Search," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(657), pages 220-270.
    10. Stig Vinther Møller & Thomas Pedersen & Erik Christian Montes Schütte & Allan Timmermann, 2024. "Search and Predictability of Prices in the Housing Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(1), pages 415-438, January.
    11. Liberati, Danilo & Loberto, Michele, 2019. "Taxation and housing markets with search frictions," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    12. Daisy J. Huang & Charles Ka Yui Leung & Chung-Yi Tse, 2018. "What Accounts for the Differences in Rent-Price Ratio and Turnover Rate? A Search-and-Matching Approach," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 431-475, October.
    13. 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.
    14. Rangan Gupta & Damien Moodley, 2023. "Housing Search Activity and Quantiles-Based Predictability of Housing Price Movements in the United States," Working Papers 202335, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    15. Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Tse, Chung-Yi, 2017. "Flipping in the housing market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 232-263.
    16. Arslan, Yavuz & Kanık, Birol & Köksal, Bülent, 2015. "Anticipated vs. unanticipated house price movements and transaction volume," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 121-129.
    17. Gaetano Lisi, 2014. "Home-seekers in the Housing Market," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 17(1), pages 47-62.
    18. Espen R Moen & Plamen T Nenov & Florian Sniekers, 2021. "Buying First or Selling First in Housing Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 38-81.
    19. Miroslav Gabrovski & Victor Ortego-Marti, 2025. "Home Construction Financing and Search Frictions in the Housing Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 55, January.
    20. Miroslav Gabrovski & Victor Ortego-Marti, 2021. "On the Positive Slope of the Beveridge Curve in the Housing Market," Working Papers 202113, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asset pricing; Business fluctuations and cycles;

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    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:bca:bocawp:12-3. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bocgvca.html .

    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.