David C. Ling

Economic Risk Factors and Commercial Real Estate Returns

A great deal of research has focused on the links between stock and bond market returns and macroeconomic events such as fluctuations in interest rates, inflation rates, and industrial production. Although the comovements of real estate and other asset prices suggests that these same systematic risk factors are likely to be priced in real estate markets, no study has formally addressed this issue. This study identifies the growth rate in real per capita consumption, the real T-bill rate, the term structure of interest rates, and unexpected inflation as fundamental drivers or “state variables” that systematically affect real estate returns. The finding of a consistently significant risk premium on consumption has important ramifications for the vast literature that has examined the (risk-adjusted) performance of real estate, for it suggests that prior findings of significant abnormal returns (either positive or negative) that have ignored consumption are potentially biased by an omitted variables problem. The results also have important implications for dynamic asset allocation strategies that involve the predictability of real estate returns using economic data.

Commercial Real Estate Return Performance: A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper investigates the return performance of publicly traded real estate companies. The analysis spans the 1984-99 time period and includes return data on over 600 companies in 28 countries. The return data reveal a substantial amount of variation in mean real estate returns and standard deviations across countries. Moreover, standard Treynor ratios, which scale country excess returns by the estimated beta on the world wealth portfolio, also reveal substantial variation across countries in excess real estate returns per unit of systematic risk. However, when we estimate Jensens alphas using both single and multifactor specifications, we detect little evidence of abnormal, risk-adjusted returns at the country level. We do, however, find evidence of a strong world-wide factor in international real estate returns. Furthermore, even after controlling for the effects of world-wide systematic risk, an orthogonalized country-specific factor is highly significant. This suggests that real estate securities may provide international diversification opportunities. Copyright 2002 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Commercial Real Estate Valuation: Fundamentals Versus Investor Sentiment

This paper investigates the role of fundamentals and investor sentiment in commercial real estate valuation. In real estate markets, heterogeneous properties trade in illiquid, highly segmented and informationally inefficient local markets. Moreover, the inability to short sell private real estate restricts the ability of sophisticated traders to enter the market and eliminate mispricing. These characteristics would seem to render private real estate markets highly susceptible to sentiment-induced mispricing. Using error correction models to carefully model potential lags in the adjustment process, this paper extends previous work on cap rate dynamics by examining the extent to which fundamentals and investor sentiment help to explain the time-series variation in national-level cap rates. We find evidence that investor sentiment impacts pricing, even after controlling for changes in expected rental growth, equity risk premiums, T-bond yields, and lagged adjustments from long run equilibrium.

The Predictability of Equity REIT Returns: Time Variation and Economic Significance

This article presents evidence on predictability of excess returns for equity REITs relative to the aggregate stock market, small-capitalization stocks, and T-bills using best-fit models from prior time periods. We find that excess equity REIT returns are far less predictable out-of-sample than in-sample. This inability to forecast out-of-sample is particularly true in the 1990s. Nevertheless, in the absence of transaction costs, active-trading strategies based on out-of-sample predictions modestly outperform REIT buy-and-hold strategies. However, when transaction costs are introduced, profits from these active-trading strategies largely disappear.

The Dynamics of REIT Capital Flows and Returns

This study examines the effects of capital flows into the REIT sector on REIT returns and, simultaneously, the effects of REIT returns on subsequent REIT capital flows. The dynamic relation between REIT capital flows and returns is estimated using vector autoregression (VAR) techniques. Unlike static regression techniques, our dynamic model produces estimates of the short-run relationships, long-run relationships, impulse response functions and forecast variance decompositions. We find evidence that REIT equity flows are significantly positively related to the prior quarters flows and negatively related to flows from two quarters ago. The evidence on the responsiveness of flows to prior returns is time-period specific. In the important post-1992 subperiod, REIT returns do not significantly affect REIT flows in any of the VAR model specifications. Simultaneously, REIT capital flows do appear to have a significant influence on equity REIT returns. Copyright 2003 by the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association

Optimal Mortgage Refinancing with Stochastic Interest Rates

The purpose of this paper is to develop a dynamic model of mortgage refinancing in a contingent claim framework that simultaneously solves for the borrowers optimal mortgage refinancing strategy, the value of the refinancing call option, the value of the mortgage liability to the borrower, and the market (lender) value of the fixed-rate contract. We also calculate the minimum differential between the contract rate on the existing mortgage and the current interest rate that is required to trigger an optimal mortgage refinancing. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Another Look at Tenure Choice, Inflation, and Taxes

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of inflation on the demand for housing. The first part of the paper presents a theoretical model that identifies the effects of inflation on the after-tax cost of housing and the choice between rental and owner-occupied housing. The second part discusses the results of a simulation model that measures the effect of inflation on the aggregate demand for housing, the aggregate homeownership rate, and the price of housing. The paper concludes that while inflation can be expected to increase the aggregate demand for housing and the price of housing relative to the general price level, inflation should ultimately lead to lower rates of homeownership. A corollary that is probably more relevant today is that lower inflation rates should reduce the real value of the housing stock and increase the homeownership rate. The paper also contains forecasts of the impact of the Tax Reform Act (TRA) of 1986 upon housing demand and the probability of homeownership for a variety of households. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

The preferential income tax treatment of owner‐occupied housing: Who really benefits?

Abstract This article uses a model that includes an explicit measure of net implicit rental income to examine the size and distribution of the tax expenditure to owner‐occupied housing across and within homeowner income classes. The model is derived from 1989 American Housing Survey data. The analysis leads to three major conclusions. First, on net, the inclusion of net implicit income in the measure of homeowner tax savings adds a substantial amount to the estimated tax expenditure given to owner‐occupied housing. Second, the interaction of changes in the standard deduction and in the tax treatment of itemized nonhousing expenses has rendered the mortgage interest deduction worthless for many low‐ and moderate‐income households. Third, although most of the expenditure is distributed to high‐income households, the distributional effects of eliminating the expenditure to owner‐occupied housing depend on the manner in which these savings are distributed.

The Liquidity of Property Shares: An International Comparison

This article investigates the magnitude and determinates of share liquidity over the 1990–2007 period in the worlds four largest securitized real estate markets: the United States, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe and Australia. We document a significant and consistent role for market capitalization, nonretail share ownership and dividend yield as drivers of liquidity across markets. We also document significant differences in liquidity across countries and between property and nonproperty companies. Also striking is the lack of correlation among our three measures of liquidity across property firms and time. This supports the notion that share price liquidity is multifaceted and therefore reliance on any one measure of liquidity in empirical work may produce misleading conclusions. Although we find some evidence of a connection between liquidity and firm value, it is less conclusive than prior studies.

An Empirical Investigation of the Contingent‐Claims Approach to Pricing Residential Mortgage Debt

Despite the growth of theoretical mortgage-pricing research, few empirical tests have been published. The primary objective of this paper is to provide an empirical test of the contingent-claims approach to pricing residential mortgages. This is accomplished by examining the differences between contract mortgage rates generated by the theoretical contingent-claims model and corresponding actual rates observed for 121 consecutive months from January 1981 through January 1991. We find that the contingent-claims model produces an unbiased prediction of changes in actual rates. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.