Topic Real Estate and Housing

What Drives Housing Prices Down? Evidence from an International Panel

In this study, we suggest an explanation for the alarmingly low growth rates of real housing prices in Canada and Germany in comparison to other OECD countries over 1975-2005. We show that the long-run development of housing markets is determined by real disposable per capita income, real long-term interest rate, population growth, and urbanization. The differential development of real housing prices ...

Germany 2007: Undiminished High Construction Production and Increased Construction Prices

After the high growth of 2006, the first quarter of 2007 also shows undiminished high construction production. Evidence of this is provided by the number of hours worked, which see growth rates in double figures in all fields of civil and structural engineering; yet it is surprising that growth in industrial construction lagged somewhat. It remains to be seen to what extent the extremely strong increase ...

Cost Liability and Residential Space Heating Expenditures of Welfare Recipients in Germany

Within the German welfare system, heating expenditures of recipients are in general fully covered by the government. This paper empirically tests for the hypothesis that households receiving welfare payments turn to over consumption of residential space heating. We use microdata from two different data sources to explore whether conditional heating expenditures of these households significantly differ ...

Germany's Construction Industry: Stabilization on the Horizon

The construction volume this year will reach a value of just under euro 230 billion _ a drop as compared to 2004 of close to 3%. At approximately 1.5%, the price increase should turn out somewhat higher than the previous year, which means the real construction volume will thus shrink by a good 4%. While the development during the first six months of this year was clearly on the decline, improved demand ...

The Amenity Value of Climate to German Households

This study uses the hedonic approach to measure the amenity value of climate in Germany. Unlike in earlier research separate hedonic wage and house price regressions are estimated for relatively small geographic areas and formal tests undertaken to determine whether the coefficients describing the impact of climate variables are homogenous across these areas. Evidence suggests that German households ...

A State Space Model for Berlin House Prices: Estimation and Economic Interpretation

Hedonic regression has become the standard approach for modeling the behavior of house prices. Usually, the common price component is modeled via dummy variables. Based on an approximation for the present value, we deliver an economic interpretation of the common price component. This allows to include explanatory factors like inflation rates, mortgage rates and building permissions. The notional rents ...

Imputed Rent and Income Inequality: A Decomposition Analysis for Great Britain, West Germany and the U.S.

This article deals with income advantages derived from owner-occupied housing and their impact on the personal income distribution. Using micro-data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS), the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), and the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) we find distinct cross-national differences in terms of the prevalence and extent of imputed rent. Results from inequality ...

Online Prediction of Berlin Single-Family House Prices

Online Forecasting of House Prices

The Personal Distribution of Income and Imputed Rent: A Cross-National Comparison for the UK, West Germany and the USA

This article deals with income advantages derived from owner occupied housing (Imputed Rent, IR) and their impact on the personal income distribution. Following a brief description of different methods with which to calculate IR in household surveys, we conduct a cross-national comparative study based on micro-data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS), the German Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP), ...