House Price Boom Research Articles

Supply Restrictions, Subprime Lending and Regional US House Prices

With regard to the recent US house price cycle, we analyze how the interaction between housing supply restrictions, mortgage credit constraints and a price-to-price feedback loop affects house price volatility. Considering 247 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, we estimate a simultaneous boom-bust system for house prices, housing supply and subprime lending. The model accounts for regional differences in supply elasticities that are determined by local variations in topographical and regulatory supply restrictions. Our results suggest that tighter supply restrictions lead to both a larger house price boom and bust, and that this is due to supply restricted areas being significantly more exposed to a financial accelerator effect and a price-to-price expectation mechanism. We further find that the presence of endogenous price ac-celeration mechanisms contribute to dilute the positive relationship between the total quantity response and the supply elasticity during a housing boom.

Betting the house

Is there a link between loose monetary conditions, credit growth, house price booms, and financial instability? This paper analyzes the role of interest rates and credit in driving house price booms and busts with data spanning 140years of modern economic history in the advanced economies. We exploit the implications of the macroeconomic policy trilemma to identify exogenous variation in monetary conditions: countries with fixed exchange regimes often see fluctuations in short-term interest rates unrelated to home economic conditions. We use novel instrumental variable local projection methods to demonstrate that loose monetary conditions lead to booms in real estate lending and house prices' bubbles; these, in turn, materially heighten the risk of financial crises. Both effects have become stronger in the postwar era.

Betting the House

Is there a link between loose monetary conditions, credit growth, house price booms, and financial instability? This paper analyzes the role of interest rates and credit in driving house price booms and busts with data spanning 140 years of modern economic history in the advanced economies. We exploit the implications of the macroeconomic policy trilemma to identify exogenous variation in monetary conditions: countries with fixed exchange regimes often see fluctuations in short-term interest rates unrelated to home economic conditions. We use novel instrumental variable local projection methods to demonstrate that loose monetary conditions lead to booms in real estate lending and house prices bubbles; these, in turn, materially heighten the risk of financial crises. Both effects have become stronger in the postwar era.

Comparing Housing Booms and Mortgage Supply in the Major OECD Countries

The house price and lending boom of the 2000s is widely considered to be the main cause of the financial crisis that began in 2007. However, looking to the past, we find a similar boom in the late 1980s which did not lead directly to a global systemic banking crisis – there were widespread banking difficulties in the early 1990s but these were linked mainly to commercial property exposures. This raises the question whether the received wisdom is incorrect, and other factors than the housing boom caused the crisis, while macroprudential policy is overly targeted at the control of house prices and lendingper se.Accordingly, in this paper we compare and contrast the cycles in house prices over 1985–94 with 2002–11. There are more similarities than contrasts between the booms. Stylised facts include a similar rise in real house prices where booms took place, and a marked rise in the real mortgage stock along with real incomes. The aftermath periods are also comparable in terms of house price changes. Econometrically, determinants of house prices are similar in size and sign from the 1980s to date.There remain some contrasts. Leverage rose far more in the later episode and did not contract in the aftermath. Mean reversion of house prices is greater in the earlier period. The earlier boom period showed differences with average house price behaviour which was not mirrored in the most recent boom and inflation was higher. Despite the contrasts, on balance we reject the idea that the recent boom was in some way unique and hence the key cause of the crisis. There is a need for further research to capture distinctive structural and conjunctural factors underlying the recent crisis which differ from the earlier boom and some suggestions are made.

The Housing and Credit Bubbles in the US and Europe: A Comparison

This paper examines the house price boom that occurred simultaneously in the United States and in a number of European countries in 2003 to 2007. In the United States, Spain, Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, and Denmark, a house price boom peaked in 2007 and, in each case, was accompanied by a rapid expansion of financing — mortgage lending and mortgage securitization. Were in securitization a common cause of the crisis of what was a global cycle? Here we consider the role of financial innovations in securitization along with the incompleteness of real estate markets in the global financial crisis.

Housing booms and media coverage

This article analyses news media coverage of the housing market. Building on theories of media influence where word of mouth is the final mechanism of opinion change but media initiate discourse, I examine the relationship between news media and the recent UK house price boom. Over 30 000 articles on the UK housing market from the period 1993 to 2008 are analysed, and it is found that media Granger-caused real house price changes, suggesting the media may have influenced opinions on the housing market. However, media sentiment on the housing market did not change with the secular increase in house prices in the 2000s, suggesting that the media did not contribute to the UK’s housing boom and may have helped constrain it.

Credit-Induced Boom and Bust

Can a credit expansion induce a boom and bust in house prices and real economic activity? This paper exploits the federal preemption of national banks in 2004 from local laws against predatory lending to gauge the effect of the supply of credit on the real economy. Specifically, we exploit the heterogeneity in the market share of national banks across counties and in state anti-predatory laws to instrument for an outward shift in the supply of credit. First, a comparison between counties in the top and bottom deciles of presence of national banks in states with anti-predatory laws suggests that the preemption regulation resulted in a 11% increase in annual lending in the 2004-2006 period. Our estimates show that this lending increase is associated with a 3.3% rise in annual house price growth rate and a 2.2% expansion of employment in the non-tradable sectors. These effects are followed by a decline in loan origination, house prices and employment of similar magnitude in subsequent years. Furthermore, we show that the increase in the supply of credit reduced mortgage delinquency rates during the boom years but increased them in bust years. Finally, these effects are stronger for subprime and inelastic regions.

Will euro area house prices sharply decrease?

The long-term euro area house price equilibrium and its short-term dynamics are estimated by means of a panel error correction model. The estimates show that the short-term dynamics are essentially driven by the autoregressive term (persistence), disposable income and mortgage loans, whereas interest rates have little effect. The long-term house price equilibrium is mainly driven on the demand side by disposable income, interest rates, and mortgage loans, whereas costs (mostly land) drive the equilibrium on the supply side. The unprecedented long-lasting boom in house prices from 1997 to 2007 is thus essentially explained by a favourable macroeconomic development caused by the EMU effect and a glut of global savings. The bust phase of euro area house prices began in 2007, and the current house price might return to its equilibrium level in 2014. According to the most realistic scenario, euro area house prices will experience a smooth and soft landing in 2016 and then begin an increasing phase that will be pulled upwards by a higher equilibrium price. However, a deflationary scenario cannot be excluded if the current credit squeeze is not solved, particularly in the peripheral euro area member states.

Measuring aggregate risk: Can we robustly identify asset-price boom–bust cycles?

We investigate the extent to which it is possible to detect asset-price booms and banking crises according to alternative identification strategies and we assess their robustness. We find some evidence that house price-booms are more likely to turn into costly recession or to trigger a banking crisis than stock-price booms. Resorting both to a non-parametric approach and a discrete-choice (logit) model, we analyze the ability of a wide set of indicators to robustly explain costly asset-price booms. According to our results, real long-term interest rates and real stock prices tend to increase the probability of a costly housing-price boom, whereas real GDP tends to increase the probability of a costly stock-price boom. Interestingly, the credit-to-GDP gap indicator, sometimes put forward in the literature as a key reference for setting countercyclical capital buffers, does not seem to be a robust leading indicator of costly booms or banking crises.

Did Consumers Want Less Debt? Consumer Credit Demand versus Supply in the Wake of the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis

We explore the sources of household balance sheet adjustment following the collapse of the housing market in 2006. First, we use microdata from the Federal Reserve Board’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey to document that banks cumulatively tightened consumer lending standards more in counties that experienced a house price boom in the mid-2000s than in non-boom counties. We then use the idea that renters, unlike homeowners, did not experience an adverse wealth shock when the housing market collapsed to examine the relative importance of two explanations for the observed deleveraging and the sluggish pickup in consumption after 2008. First, households may have optimally adjusted to lower wealth by reducing their demand for debt and implicitly, their demand for consumption. Alternatively, banks may have been more reluctant to lend in areas with pronounced real estate declines. Our evidence is consistent with the second explanation. Renters with low risk scores, compared to homeowners in the same markets, reduced their levels of nonmortgage debt and credit card debt more in counties where house prices fell more. The contrast suggests that the observed reductions in aggregate borrowing were more driven by cutbacks in the provision of credit than by a demand-based response to lower housing wealth.

The Relationship Between House Prices and Real Estate Financing in Kenya

In many countries, house price fluctuations which have been witnessed by the several booms and busts over the past two decades have been associated with financial instability. The degree to which such house price booms and busts have led to financial instability differs among countries because of the important differences in countries’ housing systems and the role that the government plays. The recent financial crisis has led to accelerated housing defaults in the U.S as well as in other countries, with millions of residential properties having negative equity mortgages with the outstanding loan balances being greater than the property value. Property prices in the Kenyan market have not been spared by the crisis being experienced. The Hass property index has been tracking property prices in the ‘upper and middle’ sectors of the Kenyan property market and has seen the average price in this sector rise from Ksh 15 million in 2006 to Ksh 20 million in 2010. The objective of the study was to determine the relationship between house prices and real estate financing in Kenya. Causal study design was employed in this research. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample. The study purposively selected a total of 20 respondents who formed the sample size of this study. The researcher administered a survey questionnaire to each member of the target population. Secondary data was collected for this study. Quantitative data collected was analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics using SPSS latest version (20.0). Regression analysis was done to establish the relationship between growth in Real Estate financing and house prices. The study found that the changes in housing prices are positively and significantly related to the long-term evolution of real estate financing. This result suggests that the evolution of housing prices is not triggered by bank real estate lending and that banks just accommodate real estate financing to the evolution of house prices. Though the study shows a bi-directional causality it concludes that the real estate market does not really affect housing price changes rather changes in housing prices do affect the amount of real estate financing.

Did Consumers Want Less Debt? Consumer Credit Demand Versus Supply in the Wake of the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis

We explore the sources of household balance sheet adjustment following the collapse of the housing market in 2006. First, we use microdata from the Federal Reserve Board’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey to document that banks cumulatively tightened consumer lending standards more in counties that experienced a house price boom in the mid-2000s than in nonboom counties. We then use the idea that renters, unlike homeowners, did not experience an adverse wealth shock when the housing market collapsed to examine the relative importance of two explanations for the observed deleveraging and the sluggish pickup in consumption after 2008. First, households may have optimally adjusted to lower wealth by reducing their demand for debt and implicitly, their demand for consumption. Alternatively, banks may have been more reluctant to lend in areas with pronounced real estate declines. Our evidence is consistent with the second explanation. Renters with low risk scores, compared to homeowners in the same markets, reduced their levels of nonmortgage debt and credit card debt more in counties where house prices fell more. The contrast suggests that the observed reductions in aggregate borrowing were more driven by cutbacks in the provision of credit than by a demand-based response to lower housing wealth.

No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870–2012

How have house prices evolved over the long run? This paper presents annual house prices for 14 advanced economies since 1870. We show that real house prices stayed constant from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, but rose strongly and with substantial cross-country variation in the second half of the twentieth century. Land prices, not replacement costs, are the key to understanding the trajectory of house prices. Rising land prices explain about 80 percent of the global house price boom that has taken place since World War II. Our findings have implications for the evolution of wealth-to-income ratios, the growth effects of agglomeration, and the price elasticity of housing supply. (JEL C43, N10, N90, R31)

How housing killed the Celtic tiger: anatomy and consequences of Ireland’s housing boom and bust

Between 1996 and 2006, Ireland experienced unprecedented house price inflation, driven by a fourfold increase in the volume of outstanding private mortgage debt and accompanied by a radical growth in housing output. This article outlines the most significant features of the housing boom and explains how it generated and disguised crucial risks in the macro economy and public finances, among mortgage lenders and in the finances of individual households. This is followed by an outline of the key features of the unwinding of the boom since and of its implications for the Irish economy, mortgage lenders and households. The conclusions examine the lessons regarding appropriate regulatory and policy responses to a house price boom which arise from the Irish experience.

Maturity Mismatch in the Polish Banking System and its Impact on the Economy

In the article maturity mismatch in the Polish banking system is estimated based on the publicly available data. Then the impact on the economy is discussed.Based on Polish central bank’s data it may be estimated that between 1996 and 2012 the maturity gap increased significantly – average residual maturity of assets exceeds 6 years in 2012 (less than 2 years in 1996), while that of liabilities remains below 1 year. The gap between assets and liabilities is even wider if we take into account the fact that due to legal constraints practically all deposits in Poland are callable.Growing maturity mismatch in a particular bank may result in higher credit, liquidity, legal, model, interest rate and other risks. Risks accepted by banks may then propagate through the economy, which may lead to financial instability. Increasing gap affects monetary aggregates; additional imbalances catalyze asset bubbles, e.g. a boom in house prices. Also, it could be claimed that maturity mismatch distorts the economic incentives through lowered interest rates.Special case of the maturity mismatch is constituted in Poland by foreign currency denominated mortgages funded with short-term local currency deposits and hedged with short-term swaps.

Monetary policy transmission in a model with animal spirits and house price booms and busts

Can monetary policy trigger pronounced boom-bust cycles in house prices and create persistent business cycles? We address this question by building heuristics into an otherwise standard DSGE model. As a result, monetary policy sets off waves of optimism and pessimism (“animal spirits”) that drive house prices, that, in turn, have strong repercussions on the business cycle. We compare our findings to a standard model with rational expectations by means of impulse responses. We suggest that a standard Taylor rule is not well-suited to maintain macroeconomic stability. Instead, an augmented rule that incorporates house prices is shown to be superior.

Endogenous gentrification and housing price dynamics

In this paper, we begin by documenting substantial variation in house price growth across neighborhoods within a city during city-wide housing price booms. We then present a model which links house price movements across neighborhoods within a city and the gentrification of those neighborhoods in response to a city wide housing demand shock. A key ingredient in our model is a positive neighborhood externality: individuals like to live next to richer neighbors. This generates an equilibrium where households segregate based upon their income. In response to a city-wide demand shock, higher income residents will choose to expand their housing by migrating into the poorer neighborhoods that directly abut the initial richer neighborhoods. The in-migration of the richer residents into these border neighborhoods will bid up prices in those neighborhoods causing the original poorer residents to migrate out. We refer to this process as “endogenous gentrification”. Using a variety of data sets and using Bartik variation across cities to identify city level housing demand shocks, we find strong empirical support for the model's predictions.

Rent Seekers vs. Producers in Cities: Contagious Housing Bubbles Force Housing Price Diffusion on Urban Overdevelopment

In recent years, housing booms have caused ghost town phenomena in many cities such as Dublin, Madrid, Dubai, etc. This paper derives a theoretical model to illustrate how activities of producers and rent seekers affect housing price booms in city centers and surrounding areas due to overdevelopment in urban growth. Because activities of producers and rent seekers are untraceable, we propose an innovative definition that housing fundamentals and bubbles are proxies for activities of producers and rent seekers respectively. We use data on the Taipei metropolitan area from 1973 to 2012 for empirical analysis. Our results show that housing price changes diffuse from the city center to the suburbs and that changes in the city center housing bubble cause price movements in the suburbs. The housing market acts as a reward system for rent seeking activities, thereby influencing investment incentives. Interestingly, the housing bubble size in the suburbs is larger than that in the city center, verifying the prediction in theory that activities of rent seekers contribute to the bubble contagion. Finally, the current vacancy rate in the suburbs is higher than that in the city center, suggesting that bubble contagion leads to overdevelopment, which then results in the appearance of so-called ghost areas.

Revisions to FHFA's House Price Index in the Recent National House Price Boom and Bust

This Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) research paper examines the history of House Price Index (HPI) revisions over the recent national boom-bust cycle in house prices. The paper is part of FHFA’s ongoing effort to enhance public understanding of the nation’s housing finance system. The paper was prepared by Jesse Weiher of the Office of Policy Analysis and Research. Andrew Leventis, Robert Seiler and Robert Collender provided valuable comments.

House Prices and Monetary Policy

This paper analyzes global dynamics in an overlapping generations general equilibrium model with housing-wealth effects. It shows that monetary policy cannot burst rational bubbles in the housing market. Under monetary policy rules of the Taylor-type, there exist global self-fulfilling paths of house prices along a heteroclinic orbit connecting multiple equilibria. From bifurcation analysis, the orbit features a boom (bust) in house prices when monetary policy is more (less) active. The paper also demonstrates that boom or busts cannot be ruled out by interest-rate feedback rules responding to both inflation and house prices.