Housing Lab in Real Estate Economics
The paper House price seasonality, market activity, and the December discount by Erling Røed Larsen (Housing Lab) has been accepted in Real Estate Economics.
Abstract:
In Norway, house prices tend to drop in December. This regularity is persistent across regions and over time. I exploit a transaction data set with high temporal granularity to document and estimate the size of the December discount. I control for a composition effect using a hedonic model and I control for unobserved heterogeneity by using repeat sales and involving ask prices and appraisal values. By segmenting into submarkets, I search for determinants of price seasonality. The evidence suggests that the December effect is linked to time-on-market for each unit and transaction volumes within each submarkets.