Topic Real Estate and Housing

The Market Value of Energy Efficiency in Buildings and the Mode of Tenure

Concerns about global warming and growing scarcity of fossil fuels require substantial changes in energy consumption patterns and energy systems, as targeted by many countries around the world. One key element to achieve such transformation is to increase energy efficiency of the housing stock. In this context, it is frequently argued that private investments are too low in the light of the potential ...

Structural Data on Production and Employment in the Construction Industry

Aircraft Noise in Berlin Affects Quality of Life Even Outside the Airport Grounds

Housing Market Fundamentals, Housing Quality and Energy Consumption: Evidence from Germany

This study investigates the relationship between regional housing market fundamentals and energy consumption. We argue that dwellings, in particularly rental properties, are not only consumer goods, but also constitute financial market assets. Properties are spatially fixed and traded in regional contexts, where real estate market characteristics like vacancy, income levels, and expectations determine ...

The Residency Discount for Rents in Germany and the Tenancy Law Reform Act 2001: Evidence from Quantile Regressions

Most countries show a residency discount in rents for sitting tenants. In the wake of strong rent increases and housing shortages, Germany implemented a reform in 2001 to curtail rent increases. Based on linked housing-tenant data for Germany, this paper estimates panel OLS and quantile regressions of rents within tenancies. The results show that rents deflated by the CPI increase strongly from 1984 ...

War, Housing Rents, and Free Market: A Case of Berlin's Rental Housing Market during World War I

New archival evidence on housing rents in Berlin over 1909–1917 is presented. The data are extracted from newspaper announcements and georeferenced. Using hedonic regressions, quality-adjusted rent indices are constructed and employed to analyze the rental dynamics during World War I, when housing market experienced several shocks. The outbreak of the war led to an outflow of men from cities. Toward ...

Leisure and Housing Consumption after Retirement: New Evidence on the Life-Cycle Hypothesis

We revisit the alleged retirement consumption puzzle. According to the life-cycle theory, foreseeable income reductions such as those around retirement should not affect consumption. However, we first recall that given higher leisure endowments after retirement, the theory does predict a fall of total market consumption expenditures. In order not to mistake this predicted drop for a puzzle we focus ...

Market Break or Simply Fake? Empirics on the Causal Effects of Rent Controls in Germany

Rising rents in German cities have led to an intense debate about the need for tighter rent controls in housing markets. In April 2015, the so-called rental brake was introduced, which imposes upper bounds for rents in new contracts, in order to immediately slow down the increase of rents in tight housing markets. Since then, 11 federal states made use of this instrument. We take advantage of this ...

Moving Home in the Early Years: What Happens to Children in the Uk?

Children’s early years are a time when many families move home. Does residential mobility affect children’s wellbeing at age five in terms of cognitive and behavioural development? The question arises as moving home is sometimes portrayed as a stressful life event adversely affecting child development, particularly if frequent. Other studies suggest a more mixed role for home moves, which may reflect ...

Heterogeneity in Price Responsiveness for Residential Space Heating in Germany

Space heating and hot water expenditures make up the majority of household energy demand in Germany, at 83.2%, making them an attractive target for energy policies. Using a panel dataset derived from yearly residential household surveys covering the years 1996 to 2014, we identify the determinants of heating expenditures for German households. We discover significant heterogeneity in expenditures depending ...