Housing Price Hikes by Negative Real Interest Rate? A Differencing Model Test on the Housing Markets of Hong Kong and Macau

This paper aims to test the effect of real interest rate on housing return, by using the differencing model for eliminating the effects of other factors. Even though the relationship has been tested before, but it is hard to eliminate other factors when studying the effect of real interest rate on housing return, especially the supply factor and the trading volume factor. This is the first attempt by using the differencing method to eliminate other factors to find the net effect of real interest rate on housing return, by using a two-city comparison, of Hong Kong and Macau from 2007Q1 to 2013Q4. The result shows that real interest rate imposes a negative effect on housing return, but not the housing supply, ceteris paribus