Housing Supply and Price Reactions: A Comparison Approach to Spanish and Italian Markets

Abstract

Italian and Spanish property markets have experienced a sustained period of growth since the mid-1990s until 2008 when both markets fell into rapid decline due to the worldwide Financial Economic Crisis (FEC). Although the economic impact of the FEC was similar, each country experienced different reactions in its respective real estate market, changes on house prices, building constructions or planning regulations. This paper presents a new supply equation for Italian and Spanish regional markets. A pool of EGLS/IV Two-Step GLS methods are used to account for cross-sectional heteroskedasticity with fixed effects in order to control space differences. The analysis has been developed at a regional level, and shows the variation in the responsiveness of the new housing supply to prices by region. The results show long-term price supply elasticity by regions, and the negative impact of exogenous shock. They also suggest that house markets follow similar patterns in several regions with elastics responses in most territories and stronger negative impact of credit crunch in Spanish than Italian housing development.