Move over stock exchange – welcome the Real Estate exchange!

There are reasons buying and selling a home gives the average person a high risk of bursting into fits of rage. Ninety percent of real estate agents are dodgy ninety percent of the time. Information on the home buying process is provided by the self-interested agent to the otherwise (but often not) uninformed buyers and sellers. And while the provision of information, in the form of sales data, legal and financial advice is growing, the incentive structure at all levels is engineered to complete a sale, rather than achieve the best price for the seller. I am going to suggest that the provision of a nationwide residential real estate exchange will benefit both buyers and sellers in the real estate market, at the expense of commission based leeches (that’s real estate agents).

First, consider the role of an agent. They are contracted to act on behalf of the seller to find a buyer at the highest possible price. For this service, they receive a commission on the sale price, which is designed as an incentive for them act in the sellers best interests. Which we all know that in practice this often faces some obstacles. An agent, who would receive in their own hand 1.25% of the sale price, or $2,500 on a $200,000 sale, has little incentive to work harder to achieve an extra $10,000 for the seller. The agent’s premium for the extra $10,000 is a meagre $125.

But maybe the current commission system is better than the alternative fixed cost system. Imagine you pay an agent a fixed cost of, say, $2,500. Where is the incentive for them? Well, they get the same money at whatever price the house sells for. And if it was structured as a fee for service, where the price needs to be paid regardless of whether the house is sold, the incentive is to never get it sold - to get the repeat business!

My main concern however, is actually not about the commission structure itself, but that the commission charged by every agent is the same. The State regulates that the maximum commission charged is 2.5% of the sale price plus $900. You cannot find one single agent who will endeavour to sell your house for less, even though the standard REIQ contract suggests negotiating this amount. Wouldn’t competition amongst agents cause this price to decline, especially as house prices have increased substantially since the regulation was introduced?

The question then is would anyone be worse off if the maximum commission rate was reduced? Some agent would of course, and it may send some out of the game, but that wouldn’t be such a bad thing at a society wide level. The prices acheived in the market will be the same (people's willingness to pay for housing will not be affected by this small detail).

The other little nasty in the real estate game is auctions. As a buyer I always find it amazing how often auctions occur, because it puts me off completely. First, to be a serious bidder you have to commit money for appropriate inspections and financial arrangements without being certain of the price you will have to pay, and whether you will actually buy. The media has recently reported some buyer complaints against agents for misleading them on house prices. The potential buyers had committed around $1,500 to inspections and other arrangements, only to find that the eventual price was way out of the ballpark. So buyers at auctions face higher risks, and hence are likely to pay a lower price than they would be willing to if they could buy with a conditional contract.

But that risk is the key. Agents face the risk of a house not selling because the seller has unrealistic expectations, or they change their mind, or whatever the case may be. Eliminating this extra ‘agency risk’ will reduce transaction costs significantly.

Imagine a real estate exchange (REE) where home owners could list their properties. Maybe each property has a list of compulsory documentation to be included – Survey plan, title, aerial photo, front photo, number of rooms, bath, bed, total covered area, building materials, age, car spaces, maybe pest inspector and engineers reports. The house would be put up on the exchange, which could be searched by any of the characteristics. The seller would nominate a price and contract conditions they are willing to accept, and buyers would nominate a price in a kind of open auction process. There would be no time limit, and people could keep their house in the exchange at a ridiculously high price, and if someone agreed, they would be forced to enter the contract, even if it was a bit of a joke - “just testing the market” or something like that.

In this case, there is no requirement for agents. Remember their fundamental role is to bring buyers and sellers together, and that role would now be replaced with the REE. Risks of uncommitted sellers would be eliminated.

There may then open up a market niche for business to provide the service of granting entry to homes for sale. Real estate agents may metamorphise into home display service providers, who collect a fee for answering enquiries and granting entry to potential buyers. Similarly, they may inspect houses on behalf of buyers. But without commissions, and without the associated risk, they can focus on the streamline management of inquiries and inspections, and compete on price for a rather homogenous service.

But maybe we don’t need government here. Google offers listings on their mapping tool for free to any individual or agent. This is a real step in the right direction. Maybe soon they will use their Google Checkout to enable bids to be made, further facilitating transactions. Maybe we will find market solutions to market failures?

*I had this blog written for some time, then searched the web before publishing and found the REE idea here.

Economists strike – what next?

One wonders about such things (and here). The most highly educated group in our society (university academics if you are still wondering) are threatening strike action for better pay.

The question in my mind is; will the economics departments be participating in such actions, and what is there reasoning?

The economic academics I know think that the university lifestyle, autonomy, and interesting research projects, mean that moderate pay is sufficient to attract good talent. After all, that’s what keeps them in the game – it’s not the money honey. Why then the need for more pay?

Surely if there was a problem attracting staff, universities could voluntarily offer higher salaries for some positions?

In the end, academics always have self interest to fall back on as a justification for participating in strikes. Although, they could just as easily benefit from the strike action and not bother participating – another self-interest motive at work.

Oh, the mystery.

Conspiracy!

I don’t take anything at face value. I give credit to conspiracy theories, as they often seem as plausible as the mainstream interpretation of events. Many times though, I simply don’t care, and even if I did, I couldn’t do much about correcting any misrepresentations of history.

I want to throw another one out there.

I have written before how implying causality between correlations of changing global surface temperature and increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide is statistical mumbo jumbo. But considering we know so little about whether the global climate will in fact ‘change’ (we still don’t know if that is for better or for worse) as a result of humanities combustion of fossil fuels, we seem to be taking quite radical actions. Households appear to want to do their part to prevent some hypothesised distant future even of low probability, while immediate and dire problems exists all around us (maybe more so in other parts of the world than the Lucky Country). So the question remains, how did such a fringe issue become so mainstream?

Today’s conspiracy theory is that a group of very powerful world business leaders (the big oil men) saw the imminent peak of fossil fuel production, and the resulting problems of a declining productive capacity of the economy. They wanted to get governments to act on this problem without having to admit that the problem existed. So, they utilised the fringe climate change movement, giving them a voice in mainstream circles. Any government actions implemented to curb climate change would conceal the peak of oil production for a little longer. Government research and subsidies may even assist in finding alternatives for big oil to invest in. All they while they can maintain that oil reserves are plentiful, keep confidence in their business and the share price high, while having governments unknowingly assist them to wean themselves off oil.

They use lines like “the stone age didn’t end because of a stone shortage” to show that change can happen voluntarily.

Anyway, that’s a nice one for today. I’ll leave you with this interesting comment from here.

I'm a bit of a conspiracy theory buff and one of my favorites is the meta-theory: all conspiracy theories that become popular are actually produced by the government to keep the paranoids occupied looking for aliens, bigfoot, and psychics instead of focusing on the more nefarious intrusions into civil and social rights. Meta-theory has a lot of benefits, such as that it explains why government explanations for things like Roswell are so terrible: a good explanation would leave only a few true believers, a bad explanation actually creates more believers in the conspiracy. As a final benefit, generating conspiracy theories as red herrings is cost-effective. A conspiracy theory works by arguing from the void/gaps. All the government need do is create a few vague clues and let the mind of the legions of paranoids do the rest of the work filling in the huge, ambiguous spaces. Why would anyone investigate mundane government corruption when there are aliens and psychics to research?

Information deficiencies in the job market

I am in the market for a new job. Here are some things I have noticed:

1. All jobs are exciting, and require people with enthusiasm.
2. All jobs are for an integral role in a team.
3. All jobs require you to work independently and as part of a team.

Here's a snapshot of the jargon.

...with a strong mission to provide outstanding services to our sunshine state. Undergoing an exciting diversification of its portfolio...

It all makes me pretty cynical. I mean, not all jobs can be that exiting! To make matters worse, many job advertisements emphasise the importance of experience. Even for a dish-pig or waiter, they seem to want a minimum of 2 years experience. Is there anything about washing dishes or carrying plates that can't be learnt in a week?

One job I saw suggested that the suitable candidate would have 5 years experience in a similar role. In my letter I wrote:

While I may not have 5 years experience in a similar role, I would suggest you are unlikely to find a proactive candidate given those requirements. Anyone who has spent 5 years in the same role, then applies for another similar one, in my mind, appears to be destined for mediocrity. If instead you seek a candidate with enthusiasm, analytical skills, and drive for constant improvement, then I may be quite suitable.

We’ll see how that application goes. I always wonder how you are meant to explain how great you will be for a job after reading a total of two paragraphs of non-sense. Maybe I'll offer a 'try before you buy' period in my next application. Surely that's in the best interests of all involved.

Where did we leave our common sense? Is it behind the new plasma screen?

This article raises the point that we have a tendency to eat more after exercise, negating the potential weight loss benefits. I don’t think this is breaking news. Nor does it actually mean that exercise won’t make you thin, as the title so controversially states. In fact, the following excerpt shows the ridiculous need to frame a discussion about how to address the compensating hunger from the exercise in emotive and controversial terms:

Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.

Common sense tells us that diet and exercise are the ingredients to weight loss (and gain mind you – athletes are right into this diet and exercise equation). Eat less, exercise more, and you should lose weight. Eat more, exercise less, you should gain weight. And for those who want to gain muscle, heavy exercise and a high protein diet with plenty of calories. I heard a third hand story once that a famous Iron-man was asked in an interview whether he would consider writing a book about his particular views on health and fitness, and he replied along the following lines: “It would be a pretty short book”. It is after all, a simple equation.

Also, imagine that reality TV show where contestants lose weight. Are we to think now that they would have done a better job without all the exercise? Or that they could have really shed all that weight by sitting on their arse, but eating slightly less - really?

Anyway, I wonder where common sense has gone sometimes.

Child care subsidies and maternity Leave: New incentives and unintended consequences

The maternity leave debate was raised yesterday with an angle I had not thought about before, but being an economist, really should have. It suggests that maternity leave has the unintended consequence of encouraging women with young children to work rather than stay home with their children. Rather than bringing families together, it actually tears them apart. Let us examine this claim.

The article claims that more than 80% of children under 5 years of age attend formal day care in Sweden, where 12 months maternity leave is the norm. This figure must surely be closer to 100% of children aged 1-5, given that mothers (or fathers) are paid to stay home for the first year of their child’s life. In Australia, the number of children under 5 in formal day care is currently less than 40%, and much of that I would imagine is part time.

Both the pro and anti maternity leave debaters need to get straight the purpose of their policy. That way we can examine whether there are possible unintended consequences which can undermine the suggested outcomes.

For example, the pro-maternity side appear to want to reduce the cost of child rearing to working mothers. Fair enough. But the unintended outcome of a maternity leave is to decrease the costs of child rearing for working mothers, but not stay-at-home mums. The new incentive structure encourages mothers to choose work over staying home with youngsters.

Complementing maternity leave is the current child care benefit scheme. I have mentioned before how cheap child care can be after all the subsidies are considered – about $15/day/child. This policy increases the net benefits of working for mums, as the cost of working, in the form child care, is reduced. These subsidies provide incentives for mothers to return to work quickly after the birth of their children.

Sweden is the classic case study of the pro-maternity leave lobbyists, but I wonder if they have really examined the outcomes of Swedish policies in detail.

Consider this comment (all quotes from here): 

Policies such as childcare and parental leave have meant that the majority of Swedish women are employed in the labour market and remain there throughout their lives, with only minor interruptions after the birth of a child.

And: 

from 1990-1998 the percentage of women engaged in part-time work fluctuated between 43 and 47 percent, while since then it has decreased to between 33 and 36 percent.

It appears more kids in full time, rather than part time, child care is what you get.

The following graph is of the period following the introduction of 180 days parental leave, at 90% of previous salary, in 1974 in Sweden. This was extended to 9 months in 1978.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the state and the municipalities both covered approximately 45 per cent of the fees, leaving the remaining 10 per cent to be covered by parental fees.

Again, subsidising child care works, in that it increases the uptake of child care. Not subsidising it works too. Cost of childcare exploded in the 1990s, and

…by 1998, 17 per cent of the costs of childcare were being covered by parental fees

The graph above clearly shows this impact. But what of the 2000s boom? We have another policy change to explain that one.

In July 2001 the Swedish government expanded childcare to include children of parents who are unemployed and in January 2002 to include children of parents who are on parental leave looking after a sibling (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2003). In addition, in January 2003 all children aged 4-5 became entitled to 525 hours of free attendance in childcare per year.

It is time for the pro-maternity leave lobby to ask whether having almost all of our children aged 1-5 in full time child care is a desirable social outcome.

My gut instinct is no, but I have no reason for this position. My son is in family day care two days a week, and he started this at 18months of age. He enjoys it, and he learns to socialise with other kids. Since putting kids in child care is a voluntary action of parents, my inner economist says that it must be the best outcome in the circumstances. Of course, the circumstances are the direct result of government policy tweaking the incentive structure.

In the end, it appears maternity leave policies do not bring families closer together, but create a generation where parents and children become strangers.

What's with the news?

I thought some of you might be interested in the content you can find through the Courier Mail website’s front page:
• Sexy designs on Columbian catwalk – photo special
• Beauty and the beast – how Miss Universe narrowly escaped a captive crocodile
• The flying car is here!
• Get naked – best nude events, beaches and resorts
• Miranda Kerr caught topless again – photos inside
• Amazing animal escapes
• Beauty and the beast – picture special (bikini clad models holding exotic pets)
I just want to remind you that they also claim a readership of 620,000 each weekday. An economist will ask, is this degradation of news demand driven, or supply driven? Considering the vast flesh content of the internet, maybe it is demand driven. Anyway, I think I have now confirmed where not to go for news.

Insightful

I thought it might be time for a short break from the residential property market. Time, maybe, for a more philosophical glimpse at our world.

When election time comes around I often wonder what difference my vote will make. All the candidates seem to converge on the same policies 99% of the time, and often take advantage of irrelevant fringe issues to attract voters to their side. It appears then that much of the benefits from a democracy actually happen before votes are cast, as candidates seek to determine policies to satisfy the majority of people. Thus, we get the candidates and policies we deserve.

I will leave you with a quote from a very interesting piece.

... we also have to overcome our perception that elections are about the future course of our country. Actually, they are about picking managers who will oversee public policy as we move into the future...

UPDATE 2 - A chronic housing shortage: Myth or reality?

This is my final post on the housing shortage debate. After a little probing, I have isolated the single point that leads astray the data rich, but theory poor, residential property analysts. It is this. Housing shortage proponents believe that housing supply is not very responsive to price changes, or the jargon, supply in inelastic. As such, we can expect another house price spike as we wait for supply to catch up with expanding future housing demands.

I would like to think that today’s ABS release of building approvals data confirms my point, and makes a mockery of housing shortage predictions, such as those of Paul Braddick of ANZ. Braddick seems to acknowledge the housing shortage as some kind of inside joke when he writes:

If housing supply remains on its current trajectory, Australia will face a critical, and potentially intractable shortage of housing throughout the decade ahead that would force rents and house prices significantly higher and drive both rental and house purchase affordability/availability to extremely difficult levels. (my emphasis)

To look at the graph below, and make dire predictions based in extrapolating a one year trend in supply, in light of historical evidence, is probably one reason for the poor reputation of economists.

By the way, Braddick has claimed a shortage for some years, and in 2007 stated that buying a home was going to get much harder, and that we face supply constraints. Yet in the year following these claims prices dropped and affordability increased. I thought houses were like bananas. A supply constraint causes prices to rise, not fall. But if you make the same prediction for long enough it is bound to be right eventually.

Where is the theory in all these extrapolative forecasts? In Joye’s own words, his solution is to ‘elastify supply’, but how elastic is supply currently? And is there a problem with too much elasticity, which may accentuate the boom and bust cycle? Let’s not also forget the fact that supply is normally more elastic in the long run than in the short run anyway.

Why do we not see these types of conclusions from our top economists instead?

…the projections of demand, of supply and of the gap between them are simplistic and unlikely to be realised in the longer term. The housing market is dynamic, as is the economy as a whole, and the emergence of a major gap between effective demand and supply would stimulate market reactions affecting price (affordability) and aggregate supply.

There are my last thoughts before putting this debate to rest.

• Housing demand comprises rental and owner-occupier demand. Investor demand is simply a function of rental demand (income) and growth expectations, which may be partly driven by owner-occupier demand.
• The elasticity of supply of housing appears quite reasonable, but I have yet to find a good recent estimate for Australian housing. Even Joye and Co’s epic volume on home ownership, with a chapter on the elasticity of housing supply, fails to estimate the elasticity figure itself, and whether there has been some recent decline attributable to regulatory changes. In the UK it, the elasticity of supply of housing appears to be between 1 and 3. My own back of the envelope estimates using ABS weighted homes average price for capital cities (price), and dwelling units completed (quantity) result in a similar range of estimates (depending on whether monthly, yearly, or lagged).
• Although a Robertson/Keen type wager does not interest me so much, I am still prepared to offer a forecast. The growth in dwelling prices from July 2009 to July 2011 will be less than the growth in prices from July 2005 to July 2007. I know, it’s not particularly shocking, but it makes my point that the methods used to justify a housing shortage are flawed, and do feed into house prices.

UPDATE - A chronic housing shortage: Myth or reality?

I tried to contact Christopher Joye and Business Spectator to promote my previous post, which tried to unravel the mysterious reason for making dramatic claims of a chronic housing shortage.

I would like to think that today’s comment by Joye at Business Spectator is in some way connected with my own analysis, but doubt it. He does not address the concerns I raised of defining the term shortage, nor does he address why house prices declined during 2008, or why the rate of price growth is slowing. He does address a point that I have not made, about the large number of unoccupied dwellings in the census data, but I agree with his point about that data. Instead, I will have to take it as an expansion of his general argument.

To be clear, the argument is centred on the fact that building approvals are at all time lows, while population growth is at historical highs. Blind Freddy can see this.


In the long run population growth is the driver of underlying demand, but part of the cause of the recent burst in the population growth rate is the ‘baby bonus children’. They will not be a significant driver of demand for space for a couple of years yet. I also challenge the validity of simply extrapolation net migration trends, which would have missed the 1987 decline, and will miss any future declines. Maybe the shortage claim is that we currently do not have enough dwellings for future demand, and that there is some reason why we may not be able to supply these future dwellings. I’m sure we both agree that long run demand is a function of population, even after minor fluctuations in occupancy rates are considered. Population has grown in fits and starts before, and it will again - that surely is not the prime justification for claims of a shortage.

But we can first examine the obvious reason why building approvals, starts and completions are at a historical low. Joye’s own research shows that house prices declined through 2008, so there was little incentive for developers to bring stock to a falling market. Developers don’t count houses, they count profits. Could housing shortage proponents please explain to developers why they should have continued to build homes unprofitably when house prices were declining?

I understand Joye’s frustration in communicating his claim to the general populous, and I have no problems with being labelled neither an academic, economist or serious researcher; simply an independent pundit. My independence I feel is my strength. But neither does my independence imply a lack of academic rigour, seriousness of research or experience in property markets, for I like to think that is my forte.

But let me focus on the arguments at hand. The proponents of a housing shortage believe there is some kind of impediment to the future supply of housing, and in Joye’s own words they include: strict density restrictions; long building approval processes; a range of taxes and charges that stifle new development; insufficient infrastructure to liberate distant supply; and scarce new land in proximate urban areas.

Solution: elastify supply. Translation: build roads, rezone land for housing, decrease government fees to developers, and streamline the development and building approvals process – make it easier to build new homes.

But Joye’s own numbers show just how responsive the supply of residential property can be. Ignoring the GST induced slump in 2000, the graph below shows three previous periods where residential building activity slowed dramatically, only to bounce back within a couple of years. And these recoveries faced similar, if not worse, taxes, charges, and approvals processes.


The Queensland government has taken Joye’s ideas for elastifying supply on board with their SEQ Regional Plan. The plan complements the SEQ Infrastructure Plan, and together they achieve all of the solutions proposed by Joye. However, a Regional Plan delivering these same outcomes has been active in the State since 2005, and yet apparently, we still have a housing shortage.

There is a very good reason why this should be the case, and why Joye and Co.’s proposed solutions will not bring forward the construction of new dwellings. Let us examine each proposed solution in turn.

1. Density restrictions. If I understand this correctly, the claim is that if developers were allowed to build higher buildings, they would build more dwellings.

But through what mechanism is this claim achieved. Let us use an example to show how rezoning to increasing building height restrictions benefits only current land holders, and does not improve the supply of dwellings.

A great case study is near my own home, where former industrial land near the city is a target for gentrification by the local government. The land has been rezoned for residential, and the building height restriction has been increased periodically from 5 to 7 to 10 storeys in the past 5 years. Yet there remains just a trickle of new apartment buildings.

The reason is simple. As the height limit is raised, the land itself gains value. Any developer looking to enter into the area would have to now pay the current owner an even greater price for the land, leaving their rate of return on the development similar in every case (the 5, 7 and 10 storey cases). Rezoning, while in some instances is required to change uses, and to allow for natural growth to proceed, still remains a gift to the land owner.

2. Long building approvals process. The argument is that supply responses to price changes are delayed due to arduous approvals processes.

In general, I agree that the approvals process for residential dwellings is in some cases arduous and time consuming. However, the fact that planning and building approvals remain current for a period of time allows developers to speculate with early approvals, without committing to construction until prices appear stable enough.

Even if the cost and time taken for approvals is reduced though innovative management by local governments, the argument of benefits going to current owners of developable land, as in increase in value reflective of the reduction in development risk, applies.

3. Taxes and charges stifle new development.

This is the same argument for rezoning and the building approvals process. Reduced development costs are returned to land values.

4. Insufficient infrastructure to liberate distant supply; and scarce new land in proximate urban areas. These arguments assume that developable land is unavailable due to current planning restrictions.

This argument is one of the more popular ones in the property industry. If I just stated here that there is plenty of land currently zoned for residential development, both within existing suburban areas, and in new outer suburb developments, I would be hit with a request to show some evidence. So here it is for South East Queensland.

Springfield, to the west of Brisbane is only 13% developed. It has an area of 2,860Ha, and a target population of 86,000 people, with house and land packages available now. Coomera, north of the Gold Coast, has been rezoned for a new satellite city, and has very good highway access to both Brisbane and the Coast. Land is zoned for housing for an estimated 60,000 people. Sippy Downs, west of the Sunshine Coast has a new plan promoting development around the University of the Sunshine Coast. Not to mention infill projects such as Portside in Hamilton, and the ongoing transformation of Teneriffe, South Bank, and South Brisbane into dense residential areas.

Of course, I have repeatedly mentioned, the benefits from rezoning go to current land holders. For a development industry with large parcels of land bought for long term speculation, this is a simple gift.

At the end of all this reasoning we end up at the same point as before. We all agree that there has been a recent jump in population growth rates, which will lead to medium term stability in house prices, and a recovery in residential construction. However, some things remain uncertain, like why Australia’s leading expert on residential property markets can claim something as radical as a chronic housing shortage based on extrapolating trends in data without resorting to theoretical foundations; and why all levels of government are buying into ineffective solutions to a non-existent problem.