COVID-19, Political Orientation and Residential Real Estate Prices

Abstract

This paper investigates whether political orientation influences residential real estate prices and returns during COVID-19 pandemic. Using county level housing data from January to June 2020, we document that Democratic counties, politically aligned counties, counties with higher prosocial scores and greater liberal news viewership experience a significant decline in house prices and returns in response to COVID-19 cases and deaths. Overall, our findings suggest that political orientation is an important dimension that affect asset prices.

Keywords: COVID-19, Real Estate, Asset Pricing

JEL Classification: G4, G12, R10