House Price Index Based on Online Listing Information: The Case of China

38 Pages Posted: 15 Aug 2018 Last revised: 7 Jul 2020

See all articles by Xiaodan Wang

Xiaodan Wang

Tsinghua University - Hang Lung Center for Real Estate; Tsinghua University - Department of Construction Management

Keyang Li

University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) - School of International Trade and Economics

Jing Wu

Tsinghua University - Hang Lung Center for Real Estate; Tsinghua University - Department of Construction Management

Date Written: July 31, 2018

Abstract

While a timely, accurate house price index with broad coverage is of significant importance in housing market research and analysis, the lack of reliable raw data sources remains a major constraint in the house price index construction in nascent housing markets such as China. In this study, we introduce online listing information as an innovative data source for house price index construction, using China’s housing resale markets as an example. Compared with alternative data sources, such as the officially-registered transaction information of housing resales, our analysis shows that online listing data provide a better trade-off between accuracy, reliability, and feasibility, especially after the resolution of potential replicated and/or manipulated data issues using our proposed procedures. Based on the cleaned online listing information, we calculate the first housing resale price indices covering almost all (274) Chinese cities. In particular, for around 200 relatively smaller cities, the index provides the first regular house price indicator, which shows a significant divergence in house price dynamics between different tiers of cities. We also briefly discuss the potential extensions of the listing price index, including the daily house price index and the housing rental price index.

Keywords: Online Listing Data, House Price Index, China

JEL Classification: R31, R38, C40, C81

Suggested Citation

Wang, Xiaodan and Li, Keyang and Wu, Jing, House Price Index Based on Online Listing Information: The Case of China (July 31, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3223256 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3223256

Xiaodan Wang

Tsinghua University - Hang Lung Center for Real Estate ( email )

HeShanHeng Building
Beijing, 100084
China

Tsinghua University - Department of Construction Management ( email )

Heshanheng Building
Tsinghua University
Beijing, 100084
China

Keyang Li

University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) - School of International Trade and Economics ( email )

10 East Huixin Street
Chaouang District
Beijing, 100029
China

Jing Wu (Contact Author)

Tsinghua University - Hang Lung Center for Real Estate ( email )

HeShanHeng Building
Beijing, 100084
China

HOME PAGE: http://thuwujing.net

Tsinghua University - Department of Construction Management ( email )

Heshanheng Building
Tsinghua University
Beijing, 100084
China

HOME PAGE: http://thuwujing.net

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