Unlike in an efficient market where buyers and sellers are mere price-takers, participants in the real estate market are able to influence ultimate transaction prices through individual search efforts. Such benefit can offset the negative price trend of a declining market and compound the positive price trend of a growing market, suggesting an asymmetric effect of the price and time-on-the-market (TOM) relation. In other words, search mitigates the downside risk and magnifies the upside potential for the seller, which is an important advantage for real estate investors. In this study, we uncover the asymmetric price–TOM relation, and demonstrate the value of search using empirical data from the residential real estate market. Based on a large sample of home sales in the Virginia Beach–Norfolk, Virginia metropolitan area during an extended period of time, our findings clearly reveal an asymmetric search effect on price: longer TOM is strongly correlated with higher selling prices, but more interestingly, even in a declining market, the effect of the search (or the impact of TOM) on price is still positive, albeit smaller, suggesting the benefit of search is more than enough to potentially offset a negative market impact.

Although government-led housing affordability policy is an important issue worldwide, there has been little research on how local governments’ commitment to such policy affects people’s subjective well-being or happiness. By combining the analysis of textual information from provincial governments’ annual working reports and microdata from four waves of the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), this article empirically explores the relationship between political discourses of provincial governments’ committment to housing affordability policies (HAPC) and residents’ self-reported happiness. Our results suggest that Chinese urban residents’ happiness is higher when the local government promises greater dedication to housing affordability improvement; however, this phenomenon existed only in the early 2010s, and the relationship between HAPC and residents’ happiness was insignificant in the mid-2010s, and even became negative in the late 2010s. In addition, we also find that the the association between HAPC and residents’ happiness differs among population groups. We conclude the article with discussions of the implications of the findings for housing policymaking and urban governance.

We investigate the determinants of the ex ante risk premium in commercial real estate. Using a 20-year time series and Markov-switching regression, we find that the ex ante risk premium is affected...

Culture and derivative institutions affect household wealth, consumption, and property rights and ownership. Cultural factors also influence the role children play in determining household consumption and wealth accumulation, including acquisition of real property. The present study extends research on these influences by focusing on cultural norms in China. Chinese cultural norms, including indulgent care of single children, a strong preference for sons, increasing competition in the marriage market, and the importance of homeownership in marriage, suggest that the number, gender, and age of children likely affect a household’s consumption and investment behavior, especially as related to consumption and investment in real property. Using China Family Panel Studies’ (CFPS) longitudinal data, we found that, after controlling for other factors, total wealth (consumption) for households with children was 17.8% (23.5%) more than that of households without children. More interestingly, further results show that households with male children have more wealth accumulation and more expenditure on total consumption, including real estate–related expenditures, with a higher likelihood of owning additional residential real estate when compared to households with no or female children. The positive effect associated with children on household wealth is largely due to increased housing wealth, including the ownership of additional residential units. The pattern of wealth and real estate ownership follows Chinese cultural and social norms.