IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rtv/ceisrp/351.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Second Homes: Households' Life Dream or (Wrong) Investment?

Author

Listed:

Abstract

While purchasing the primary home is mainly motivated by essential consumption needs, a second house has generally been considered a good investment. However, second homes may result in disparate final uses, including unprofitable ones. We contribute to the scant literature on second houses by empirically investigating the cases of unrented second homes, which represent the most notable unprofitable use. We use the 2002-2012 Bank of Italy Survey on Household Income and Wealth which also provides information on real estates actual use. Our results highlight: a gender gap, whereby the unprofitable use is more frequent among male; no association with household’s economic characteristics; and, a strong association with the real estate features, with inherited dwellings more likely to be unprofitably used. Besides casting some doubts on the goodness of second homes as an investment, our results have important policy implications on the housing and rental markets, calling for policy or regulatory interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Marianna Brunetti & Costanza Torricelli, 2012. "Second Homes: Households' Life Dream or (Wrong) Investment?," CEIS Research Paper 351, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 04 Aug 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:351
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ceistorvergata.it/RePEc/rpaper/RP351.pdf
    File Function: Main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula & Giovanni Pica, 2014. "Do Transfer Taxes Reduce Intergenerational Transfers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 248-275, February.
    2. Riccardo Calcagno & Maria Cesira Urzi Brancati, 2014. "Do more financially literate households invest less in housing? Evidence from Italy," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(1), pages 430-445.
    3. Marianna Brunetti & Elena Giarda & Costanza Torricelli, 2016. "Is Financial Fragility a Matter of Illiquidity? An Appraisal for Italian Households," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(4), pages 628-649, December.
    4. Michael F. Lovenheim & C. Lockwood Reynolds, 2013. "The Effect of Housing Wealth on College Choice: Evidence from the Housing Boom," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(1), pages 1-35.
    5. John Y. Campbell, 2006. "Household Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1553-1604, August.
    6. Harminder Battu & Ada Ma & Euan Phimister, 2008. "Housing Tenure, Job Mobility and Unemployment in the UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(527), pages 311-328, March.
    7. Bloze, Gintautas & Skak, Morten, 2014. "Owning, letting and demanding second homes," Discussion Papers on Economics 1/2014, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    8. Makoto Nakajima & Irina A. Telyukova, 2013. "Housing in Retirement Across Countries," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2013-18, Center for Retirement Research.
    9. Hyun-Soo Choi & Harrison Hong & Jeffrey Kubik & Jeffrey P. Thompson, 2014. "When Real Estate is the Only Game in Town," NBER Working Papers 19798, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Eva Sierminska & Karina Doorley, 2018. "To own or not to own? Household portfolios, demographics and institutions in a cross-national perspective," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 26(1), pages 1-43, March.
    11. Orazio P. Attanasio & Laura Blow & Robert Hamilton & Andrew Leicester, 2009. "Booms and Busts: Consumption, House Prices and Expectations," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 20-50, February.
    12. Todd Sinai & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2005. "Owner-Occupied Housing as a Hedge Against Rent Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 763-789.
    13. Bertocchi, Graziella & Brunetti, Marianna & Torricelli, Costanza, 2014. "Who holds the purse strings within the household? The determinants of intra-family decision making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 65-86.
    14. repec:cai:poeine:pope_701_0157 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Marianna Brunetti & Elena Giarda & Costanza Torricelli, 2016. "Is Financial Fragility a Matter of Illiquidity? An Appraisal for Italian Households," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(4), pages 628-649, December.
    16. Gattini, Luca & Ganoulis, Ioannis, 2012. "House price responsiveness of housing investments across major European economies," Working Paper Series 1461, European Central Bank.
    17. Youqin Huang & Chengdong Yi, 2010. "Consumption and Tenure Choice of Multiple Homes in Transitional Urban China," International Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 105-131.
    18. Eva Sierminska & Yelena Takhtamanova, 2012. "Financial and Housing Wealth and Consumption Spending: Cross-Country and Age Group Comparisons," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(5), pages 685-719.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Massimo Baldini & Giovanni Gallo & Costanza Torricelli, 2017. "Past Income Scarcity and Current Perception of Financial Fragility," Centro Studi di Banca e Finanza (CEFIN) (Center for Studies in Banking and Finance) 0064, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".

    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. Marianna Brunetti & Costanza Torricelli, 2012. "Second Homes: Households' Life Dream or (Wrong) Investment?," CEIS Research Paper 351, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 04 Aug 2012.
    2. Brunetti, M. & Ciciretti, R. & Djordjevic, Lj., 2016. "The determinants of household’s bank switching," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 175-189.
    3. Marianna Brunetti & Costanza Torricelli, 2017. "Second homes in Italy: every household’s dream or (un)profitable investments?," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 168-185, February.
    4. Chen, Xin & Qin, Yaohua & Xiao, He & Zhang, Yifei, 2019. "Microfinancing and Home-purchase Restrictions: Evidence from the Online “Peer-to-Peer” Lending in China," MPRA Paper 95375, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Kraft, Holger & Munk, Claus & Wagner, Sebastian, 2015. "Housing habits and their implications for life-cycle consumption and investment," SAFE Working Paper Series 85, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2015.
    6. Agnese Romiti & Mariacristina Rossi, 2014. "Wealth decumulation, portfolio composition and financial literacy among European elderly," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 375, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    7. SIERMINSKA Eva & ROSSI Cristina, 2016. "Housing Decisions, Family Types and Gender. A cross-national perspective," LISER Working Paper Series 2016-10, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    8. Kartik Athreya & José Mustre-del-Río & Juan M Sánchez, 2019. "The Persistence of Financial Distress," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(10), pages 3851-3883.
    9. Graziella Bertocchi & Marianna Brunetti & Anzelika Zaiceva, 2023. "The Financial Decisions of Immigrant and Native Households: Evidence from Italy," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(1), pages 117-174, March.
    10. Philippe Bracke & Christian Hilber & Olmo Silva, 2014. "Homeownership and Entrepreneurship: The Role of Mortgage Debt and Commitment," CESifo Working Paper Series 5048, CESifo.
    11. Waxman, Andrew & Liang, Yuanning & Li, Shanjun & Barwick, Panle Jia & Zhao, Meng, 2020. "Tightening belts to buy a home: Consumption responses to rising housing prices in urban China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    12. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi & Rooij, Maarten van, 2021. "Heterogeneous wealth effects," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    13. Andrei Semenov, 2017. "Background risk in consumption and the equity risk premium," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 407-439, February.
    14. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Alexander Michaelides & Kalin Nikolov, 2011. "Winners and Losers in Housing Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 255-296, March.
    15. Massimo Baldini & Giovanni Gallo & Costanza Torricelli, 2017. "Past Income Scarcity and Current Perception of Financial Fragility," Centro Studi di Banca e Finanza (CEFIN) (Center for Studies in Banking and Finance) 17121, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    16. Marco Percoco, 2015. "Homeownership and saving preferences: evidence from Italy," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 141-149, July.
    17. Elisabetta Gualandri & Valeria Venturelli, 2013. "The financing of Italian firms and the credit crunch: findings and exit strategies," Centro Studi di Banca e Finanza (CEFIN) (Center for Studies in Banking and Finance) 13101, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    18. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Jappelli, Tullio, 2015. "Wealth shocks, unemployment shocks and consumption in the wake of the Great Recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 21-41.
    19. Paciorek, Andrew & Sinai, Todd, 2012. "Does home owning smooth the variability of future housing consumption?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 244-257.
    20. Felix Chopra & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Home Price Expectations and Spending: Evidence from a Field Experiment," CEBI working paper series 23-03, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    multiple homeownership; second homes; household portfolios; real-estate inheritance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis

    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:rtv:ceisrp:351. 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: Barbara Piazzi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csrotit.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.