Regional Housing Market Conditions in Spain

Alessandro Galesi, Nuria Mata, David Rey, Sebastian Schmitz and Johannes Schuffels

No 29, Research Memorandum from Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE)

Abstract: Selling homes is not easy. Home sellers usually need to apply a price discount to swiftly close a deal, and more so when housing market activity is low. Using detailed data on home listings and transactions in Spain, we provide unique estimates of the price discount across regional submarkets and time. We document that the price discount is strongly countercylical, as it increases with declining market conditions, and viceversa during upturns. Despite substantial heterogeneity, regional price discounts are synchronized and a single common factor can account for about sixty percent of their variation, thus suggesting the existence of a national housing cycle. Finally, we document that the main factors linked to changes in the price discount are developments in income, population, and interest rates, which are jointly able to explain the bulk of variation in housing market liquidity across regions and time. Besides providing a formal test of the performance of the price spread in gauging housing market liquidity, this study conveys practical information to real estate market participants, policymakers, and financial institutions for which assessing conditions in Spanish housing markets is a central task.

JEL-codes: R20 R30 R32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-10-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-geo and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:umagsb:2020029

DOI: 10.26481/umagsb.2020029

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