The traditional law of leases imposed no duty on landlords to mitigate damages in the event of tenant breach, whereas the modern law of leases does. An economic model of leases, in which absentee tenants may or may not intend to breach, shows that the traditional rule promotes tenant investment...

This paper examines the impact of land title systems on property values. The predominant system in the U.S., the recording system, awards title to claimants over current possessors, whereas the Torrens registration system awards title to the current owner. In theory, the registration system...

This article examines the usefulness of listing prices as leading indicators of house values and as predictors of the direction of housing markets. With Multiple Listing Service data from a large metropolitan area, we create two price indexes, using first listing price and then selling price as...

A dual land market is one in which the government owns a significant portion of developable land while real estate development is done primarily by the private sector. This paper examines Singapore's experience with its system of government land supply in a dual market, focusing on its response...

This paper provides new evidence of sales sequence-real estate price relations in a setting in which consumption risk and completion risk are both minimized and where agglomeration economics do not pertain. The results illustrate that the monotonic declining price "afternoon effect" or rising...

Under certainty, unlimited duration of private ownership of land provides landowners with efficient development incentives. However, in cases of ownership risk arising from title mistakes, fraud, boundary encroachment, or adverse possession, the statute of limitations sets a limit on how long...

This paper examines the effects of quantity restrictions on residential property prices in the presence of neighborhood externalities. A Brigham Young University policy limiting students' location choices provides a natural experiment for studying the externality and quantity restriction effects...

Comparing agent-owner with agent-represented home sales illustrates that commission contracts lead to external agent moral hazard. Real estate developers are sophisticated sellers who can either use external agents or hire internal agents. The theory shows that neither scheme eliminates agent...