How Taxes and Required Returns Drove Commercial Real Estate Valuations Over the Past Four Decades

47 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2017

See all articles by John V. Duca

John V. Duca

Oberlin College; Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Patric H. Hendershott

University of Aberdeen - Centre for Property Research; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

David C. Ling

University of Florida - Warrington College of Business Administration

Date Written: 2017-01-27

Abstract

We document the evolution of U.S. tax law regarding commercial real estate (CRE) since 1975, noting changes in income and capital gains tax rates and tax depreciation methods. The most prominent changes were the 1981 and 1986 Tax Acts, but numerous significant changes occurred in the last dozen years. We then compute the present value of tax depreciation per dollar of acquisition price and an effective tax rate for CRE. We explain the quarterly variation in CRE capitalization rates using an error correction framework and find that the long run estimates are statistically significant in the way theory would suggest. Moreover, the required financial asset return and the tax depreciation variable temporally predict (“cause”) capitalization rates in the long run, but not vice versa.

JEL Classification: G12, H20, H30, R30

Suggested Citation

Duca, John V. and Hendershott, Patric H. and Ling, David Curtis, How Taxes and Required Returns Drove Commercial Real Estate Valuations Over the Past Four Decades (2017-01-27). FRB of Dallas Working Paper No. 1703, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2916611 or http://dx.doi.org/10.24149/wp1703

John V. Duca (Contact Author)

Oberlin College ( email )

Oberlin, OH 44074
United States

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas ( email )

2200 North Pearl Street
PO Box 655906
Dallas, TX 75265-5906
United States

Patric H. Hendershott

University of Aberdeen - Centre for Property Research ( email )

Aberdeen AB24 2UF
Scotland

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

David Curtis Ling

University of Florida - Warrington College of Business Administration ( email )

P.O. Box 117168
Gainesville, FL 32611
United States
352-392-9307 (Phone)
352-392-0301 (Fax)

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