Price Rigidity and Vacancy Rates: The Framing Effect on Rental Housing Markets

I-Chun Tsai ()
Additional contact information
I-Chun Tsai: National University of Kaohsiung

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 2021, vol. 63, issue 4, No 2, 547-564

Abstract: Abstract This paper proposes a new explanation for housing rent price rigidity. When high inflation or low inflation occurs, the bargaining process for new rent price represents negotiations representing increasing or diminishing utility for landlords. Based on framing effect theory, this study hypothesized that utility increasing-bargaining causes landlords to choose to give greater concessions and prefer short-term contracts. Although the income obtained from single contracts is comparatively lower, the high transaction volume (number of lease contracts) causes a reduction in the number of vacant properties and a higher frequency of price adjustments. Conversely, when low inflation occurs, landlords face utility decreasing-bargaining, reduce their concessions, and exhibit a preference for long-term contracts, thereby leading to an increase in the number of vacant houses and a lower frequency of price adjustments. Using US rental market data, this study explains asymmetric rent volatility and changes in the vacancy rate, and provides related evidence supporting the hypothesis that this rental market phenomenon is caused by an inflation illusion.

Keywords: Housing rent price rigidity; Rent volatility; Vacancy rate; Framing effect; Inflation illusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11146-020-09791-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jrefec:v:63:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s11146-020-09791-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11146/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11146-020-09791-4

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics is currently edited by Steven R. Grenadier, James B. Kau and C.F. Sirmans

More articles in The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().