Forced Sales and House Prices

45 Pages Posted: 13 Apr 2009 Last revised: 15 Aug 2022

See all articles by John Y. Campbell

John Y. Campbell

Harvard University - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Stefano Giglio

Yale School of Management; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Parag A. Pathak

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics

Date Written: April 2009

Abstract

This paper uses data on house transactions in the state of Massachusetts over the last 20 years to show that houses sold after foreclosure, or close in time to the death or bankruptcy of at least one seller, are sold at lower prices than other houses. Foreclosure discounts are particularly large on average at 28% of the value of a house. The pattern of death-related discounts suggests that they may result from poor home maintenance by older sellers, while foreclosure discounts appear to be related to the threat of vandalism in low-priced neighborhoods. After aggregating to the zipcode level and controlling for regional price trends, the prices of forced sales are mean-reverting, while the prices of unforced sales are close to a random walk. At the zipcode level, this suggests that unforced sales take place at approximately efficient prices, while forced-sales prices reflect time-varying illiquidity in neighborhood housing markets. At a more local level, however, we find that foreclosures that take place within a quarter of a mile, and particularly within a tenth of a mile, of a house lower the price at which it is sold. Our preferred estimate of this effect is that a foreclosure at a distance of 0.05 miles lowers the price of a house by about 1%.

Suggested Citation

Campbell, John Y. and Giglio, Stefano and Pathak, Parag A., Forced Sales and House Prices (April 2009). NBER Working Paper No. w14866, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1376188

John Y. Campbell (Contact Author)

Harvard University - Department of Economics ( email )

Littauer Center
Room 213
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States
617-496-6448 (Phone)
617-495-7730 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://scholar.harvard.edu/campbell

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Stefano Giglio

Yale School of Management ( email )

135 Prospect Street
P.O. Box 208200
New Haven, CT 06520-8200
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Parag A. Pathak

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics ( email )

50 Memorial Drive
E52-391
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
173
Abstract Views
4,394
Rank
312,664
PlumX Metrics