IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/127192.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impact of new housing supply on the distribution of rents

Author

Listed:
  • Mense, Andreas

Abstract

I estimate the impact of new housing supply on the local rent distribution, exploiting delays in housing completions caused by weather shocks. A 1% increase in new supply (i) lowers average rents by 0.19%, (ii) effectively reduces rents of lower-quality units, and (iii) disproportionately increases the number of second-hand units available for rent. Moreover, the impact on rents is equally strong in high-demand markets. Employing a quantitative model, I explain these results by second-hand supply: New supply triggers moving chains that free up units in all market segments. The estimate translates into a short-run demand price elasticity of −0.025.

Suggested Citation

  • Mense, Andreas, 2025. "The impact of new housing supply on the distribution of rents," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 127192, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:127192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/127192/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian A. L. Hilber & Wouter Vermeulen, 2016. "The Impact of Supply Constraints on House Prices in England," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(591), pages 358-405, March.
    2. Saks, Raven E., 2008. "Job creation and housing construction: Constraints on metropolitan area employment growth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 178-195, July.
    3. Eberts, Randall W. & Gronberg, Timothy J., 1982. "Wage gradients, rent gradients, and the price elasticity of demand for housing: An empirical investigation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 168-176, September.
    4. Rapaport, Carol, 1997. "Housing Demand and Community Choice: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 243-260, September.
    5. N. Edward Coulson & Christian Richard, 1996. "The Dynamic Impact of Unseasonable Weather on Construction Activity," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 24(2), pages 179-194.
    6. Stuart S. Rosenthal, 2014. "Are Private Markets and Filtering a Viable Source of Low-Income Housing? Estimates from a "Repeat Income" Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 687-706, February.
    7. Dennis Epple & Luis Quintero & Holger Sieg, 2020. "A New Approach to Estimating Equilibrium Models for Metropolitan Housing Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(3), pages 948-983.
    8. Mast, Evan, 2023. "JUE Insight: The effect of new market-rate housing construction on the low-income housing market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    9. Büchler, Simon & Ehrlich, Maximilian v. & Schöni, Olivier, 2021. "The amplifying effect of capitalization rates on housing supply," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    10. Friedman, Joseph & Weinberg, Daniel H., 1981. "The demand for rental housing: Evidence from the Housing Allowance Demand Experiment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 311-331, May.
    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. Mense, Andreas, 2021. "Secondary housing supply," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 05/2021, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    2. Christian A. L. Hilber & Tracy M. Turner, 2024. "Land use regulation, homeownership and wealth inequality," CEP Discussion Papers dp2003, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Mense, Andreas, 2020. "The Impact of New Housing Supply on the Distribution of Rents," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224569, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Molloy, Raven & Nathanson, Charles G. & Paciorek, Andrew, 2022. "Housing supply and affordability: Evidence from rents, housing consumption and household location," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Hilber, Christian Albin Lukas & Mense, Andreas, 2021. "Why have house prices risen so much more than rents in superstar cities?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114283, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Büchler, Simon & Lutz, Elena, 2024. "Making housing affordable? The local effects of relaxing land-use regulation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    7. Christian A. L. Hilber & Olivier Schoni, 2022. "Housing policy and affordable housing," CEP Occasional Papers 56, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Christian A. L. Hilber, 2017. "The Economic Implications of House Price Capitalization: A Synthesis," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 45(2), pages 301-339, April.
    9. Christian A. L. Hilber, 2019. "Immobilienpreise und Immobilienzyklen und die Rolle von Angebotsbeschränkungen [The impact of local supply constraints on house prices and price dynamics]," Zeitschrift für Immobilienökonomie (German Journal of Real Estate Research), Springer;Gesellschaft für Immobilienwirtschaftliche Forschung e. V., vol. 5(1), pages 37-65, November.
    10. H. Spencer Banzhaf & Kyle Mangum, 2019. "Capitalization as a Two-Part Tariff: The Role of Zoning," NBER Working Papers 25699, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Christian A. L. Hilber & Tracy M. Turner, 2014. "The Mortgage Interest Deduction and its Impact on Homeownership Decisions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(4), pages 618-637, October.
    12. Xiaolun Yu, 2024. "Low‐rise buildings in big cities: Theory and evidence from China," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 52(2), pages 366-400, March.
    13. Ganong, Peter & Shoag, Daniel, 2017. "Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 76-90.
    14. Cheshire, Paul & Hilber, Christian A.L. & Koster, Hans R.A., 2018. "Empty homes, longer commutes: The unintended consequences of more restrictive local planning," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 126-151.
    15. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Ross, Stephen L., 2015. "Change and Persistence in the Economic Status of Neighborhoods and Cities," 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 1047-1120, Elsevier.
    16. Margaris, Aristotelis, 2024. "Monetary policy and house price heterogeneity: Evidence from the U.K," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    17. Guillaume Chapelle & J.B. Eyméoud & C. Wolf, 2023. "Land-use regulation and housing supply elasticity: evidence from France," THEMA Working Papers 2023-08, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    18. Ingrid Gould Ellen & Noah M Kazis, 2023. "Flexibility and Conversions in New York City's Housing Stock: Building for an Era of Rapid Change," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 29(2), pages 53-74, October.
    19. Ball, Michael & Meen, Geoffrey & Nygaard, Christian, 2010. "Housing supply price elasticities revisited: Evidence from international, national, local and company data," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 255-268, December.
    20. Howard, Greg & Liebersohn, Jack, 2021. "Why is the rent so darn high? The role of growing demand to live in housing-supply-inelastic cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

    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:ehl:lserod:127192. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.