Can inflation cure mortgage debt overhang and mitigate the severity of housing busts? Focusing on the Great Recession, I address this question through the lens of a quantitative macroeconomic model of illiquid housing, endogenous mortgage pricing, and equilibrium default. First, I show that an...

This paper quantitatively accounts for the cyclical dynamics of key macroeconomic housing and mortgage market variables using a tractable, search-theoretic model of housing with equilibrium mortgage default. To explain these dynamics, the model highlights the importance of liquidity spirals...

This paper investigates the macroeconomic effects of search risk in the housing market. To do so, I introduce a tractable directed search model of housing with multidimensional buyer and seller heterogeneity. I incorporate this framework in an incomplete markets macroeconomic model with...

I study a staggered policy change intended to reduce bidding wars for homes by increasing their list price and eliminating underpricing. Using a novel and large micro data set and a difference-in-difference methodology, I find that increasing the list price reduces the buyer arrival rates in all...

This paper studies the role of observational learning in search markets where buyers do not take the list price as a take-it-or-leave-it offer. Using a unique data from the Beijing housing market, we estimate a structural model in which buyers infer a seller’s reservation value from the...

This chapter surveys the literature on the microstructure of housing markets. It considers one-sided search, random matching, and directed search models. It also examines the bargaining that takes place once a match has occurred, with the bargaining taking various forms, including two-party...

Many goods are marketed after first stating a list price, with the expectation that the eventual sales price will differ. In this paper we first present a simple model of search behavior that includes the seller setting a list price. Holding constant the mean of the buyers' distribution of...

We develop an equilibrium model for residential housing transactions in an economy with houses that differ in their quality and households that differ in their planned holding horizon. We show that, in equilibrium, clientele effect persists, with long-horizon buyers overwhelmingly choosing...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between school quality and information disclosure in housing markets. When presented with the option of identifying their local public school in a real estate listing, we find that sellers with homes assigned to higher-performing schools are more...

We conduct a survey experiment among 18,000 respondents in Germany to examine the determinants of support for rent control policies. Highlighting undesirable price and supply effects lowers respondents’ agreement with rent control, while pointing out that it can prevent displacement of...