The long-run relationship between house prices and rents

Joshua H. Gallin
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Joshua H. Gallin: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/joshua-gallin.htm

No 2004-50, Finance and Economics Discussion Series from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)

Abstract: I show that when house prices are high relative to rents (that is, when the rent-price ratio is low) changes in real rents tend to be larger than usual and changes in real prices tend to be smaller than usual. Standard error-correction models provide inconclusive results about the predictive power of the rent-price ratio at a quarterly frequency. I use a long-horizon regression approach to show that the rent-price ratio helps predict changes in real rents and real prices over three-year periods. This result withstands the inclusion of a measure of the user cost of capital. I show that a long- horizon regression approach can yield biased estimates of the degree of error correction if prices have a unit root but do not follow a random walk. I construct bootstrap distributions to conduct appropriate inference in the presence of this bias. The results lend empirical support to the view that the rent-price ratio is an indicator of valuation in the housing market.

Keywords: Housing - Prices; Rental housing - Prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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