The Business Cycles of Urban Housing Market (Case Study: Urban Housing Market of Isfahan, 1980-2014)

Abstract

H ousing is a commodity with unique features and its market, especially in urban areas, is characterized by unique business cycles that differentiate it from other commodities. On one hand, housing market can be deeply influenced by economic shocks, and on the other hand, the sheer size of housing investments makes the economy particularly vulnerable to any shock in this market. Hence, analysis of housing markets and their boom and recession periods is of interest to the actors of housing sector as well as economists. This study aimed to investigate the business cycles of urban housing market of Isfahan province (Iran) over the period of 1980-2014, and analyze the trends of private investment in this market by the use of Markov Switching Vector Auto Regression (MS-VAR) model, which has shown great strength in differentiating boom and recession periods. The results show that the periods of boom and recession in Isfahan’s urban housing market both have an expected length of 10 years, and that the business cycles of this housing market run opposite to the business cycle of the national economy.