1. Global Housing Markets 2000-15: A Supply Side View
A presentation for IHA 2016 Interim Meeting
November 3, 2016
Hites Ahir
Research Department, IMF
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS PRESENTATION ARE THOSE OF THE PRESENTERS AND SHOULD NOT BE ASCRIBED TO THE IMF OR IMF POLICY.

2. I. Why take a look at housing supply?

3. House prices are rising in many countries

4. Housing supply constraints have been reported in several countries
In Sweden, differences in housing supply conditions across cities have contributed to divergences in house prices (IMF 2015).
In St. Ives—a seaside town in Cornwall, England—80 percent of the residents voted for a neighborhood plan that bans the sale of newly built homes as second homes (Mohdin 2016).
In the United States, a limited supply of single-family homes available for purchase will continue to constrain sales growth, and put upward pressure on house prices over the next few years (Rappaport 2016).

5. Housing supply constraints have been linked with housing affordability issues

6. Google shows an increase in number of search results for supply and affordability

7. II. What data is available on housing supply across countries?

8. Cross-country dataset
A dataset on housing construction indicators for 42 countries
Source: CEIC, Eurostat, Haver Analytics, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and national sources.

9. Housing construction indicators
Housing investment is defined as gross fixed capital formation— housing (28 countries included).
Housing completions is defined as number of new residential construction projects that have been completed during a given period (21 countries included).
Housing permits is defined as an authorization to start work on a housing project (40 countries included).
Housing starts is defined as the number of new residential construction projects that have begun during a given period (22 countries included).

10. List of countries included
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United States.

11. III. What does the dataset show us?

12. The picture at the aggregate level: 2000-15

13. The aggregate picture for other indicators

14. The picture at the disaggregate level
Countries can be placed into groups based on similarities in the performance of house prices.
Breaking the sample into two time periods, and , we can see three distinct patterns that form a basis for placing countries into groups.

15. Group 1: Gloom and Gloom
On average, real house prices declined during both and
13 countries: Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore*, Slovenia, and Spain.
Note: real house prices in Singapore declined during , but not during period.

16. Group 2: Bust and Boom
On average, real house prices declined during , but rebounded during
12 countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, South Africa, United Kingdom, and United States.

17. Group 3: Boom and Boom
On average, real house prices did not experience a decline during either or
17 countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Slovak Republic, Sweden, and Taiwan.

18. The picture at the disaggregated level

19. The disaggregated picture for other indicators

20. III. Article IV Consultations

21. 2016 Article IV Consultations
Completed
Not Completed
Canada (June)
Japan (July)
Nigeria (May)
Norway (June)
Peru (June)
South Africa (July)
United States (July)
Zimbabwe (May)
Australia
Gambia, The
Namibia
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia

22. Thank you.