Arbeitspapier

How useful is listings data for research?

Compared to other asset classes, information on transactions of residential real estate is scarce and available only with delay. Listing information from web-platforms is abundant and timely. Is listings data useful for research? We examine this question and find that distributions of ask and sale prices differ significantly, both because of characteristics composition and implicit pricing. Estimates of the average willingness to pay from ask data can be widely off when compared with estimates from sale data. Ask data is also not useful to predict prices of individual houses and suffer from large error variances. Quality-controlled ask and sale price indices show similar trends and we find that an ask price index can be used for nowcasting. Overall, our analysis shows that ask data has limited potential for research, and is no substitute for sale data.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: FORLand-Working Paper ; No. 19 (2020)

Classification
Wirtschaft
Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
Housing Supply and Markets
Subject
hedonic modelling
nowcasting
price prediction
stochastic dominance

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Kolbe, Jens
Schulz, Rainer
Wersing, Martin
Werwatz, Axel
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, DFG Research Unit 2569 FORLand "Agricultural Land Markets - Efficiency and Regulation"
(where)
Berlin
(when)
2020

DOI
doi:10.18452/21038
Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Kolbe, Jens
  • Schulz, Rainer
  • Wersing, Martin
  • Werwatz, Axel
  • Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, DFG Research Unit 2569 FORLand "Agricultural Land Markets - Efficiency and Regulation"

Time of origin

  • 2020

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