Borrower-Based Measures and House Price Expectations. Evidence from the Irish Residential Property Price Survey

Abstract: This brief paper analyses expectations for house-price growth in Ireland from 2012 to 2024, using novel microdata from the CBI/SCSI Residential Property Price Survey of real estate professionals. I compute statistical moments and relative entropy for each survey wave, focusing on nationwide and county-level expectations for the following 12 months, and show their evolution over time. Structural breaks analysis suggests a link between the timing of the Irish Mortgage Measures Framework (MMF) anouncements and shifts in housing inflation expectations, in particular with regard to median and tail expectations. In addition, a Bayesian VAR analysis shows that survey moments significantly improve the forecasting ability of real house price growth, in line with the recent literature on headline inflation expectations.

Luca Riva
Luca Riva
Economist

Economist, Central Bank of Ireland (Research). Adjunct Lecturer, University College Dublin.