Testing for bubbles in housing markets: some evidence for Brazil

Purpose - Housing prices in Brazil have displayed an impressive growth in recent years, raising some concerns about the existence of a bubble in housing markets. In this paper, the authors implement an empirical methodology to identify whether or not there is a bubble in housing markets in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach - Based on a theoretical model that establish that, in the absence of a bubble, a long-run equilibrium relationship should be observed between the market price of an asset and its dividends. The authors implement two methodologies. First, the authors assess whether there is a cointegration relationship between housing prices and housing rental prices. Second, the authors test whether the price-to-rent ratio is stationary. Findings - The authors’ results show that there is evidence of a bubble in housing prices in Brazil. However, given the short span of the data, the authors perform a Monte Carlo simulation and show that the cointegration tests may be biased in small samples. Therefore, the authors should be caution when assessing the results. Research limitations/implications - The results obtained from the cointegration analysis can be biased for small samples. Practical implications - The information on the excessive increase of the prices of the properties in relation to their fundamental value can help in the decision-making on investment of the economic agents. Social implications - These results corroborate the hypothesis that Brazil has an excessive appreciation in housing prices, and, as Silva and Besarria (2018) have suggested, this behavior explains, in part, the fact that the central bank has taken this issue into account when deciding about the stance of monetary policy of Brazil. Originality/value - The originality is linked to the use of the Gregory-Hansen method of cointegration in the identification of bubbles and discussion of the limitations of the research through Monte Carlo simulation.