2-III_pm

[127] Quantifying demand-supply balance in housing market using property-level inquiry volume

The case of resale detached houses in the Tokyo metropolitan area

○Masatomo Suzuki¹, Yuta Arai² (1. The University of Tokyo, 2. Recruit Sumai Company Ltd.)

Keywords:resale housing market, housing preferences, housing market index, demand and supply

In resale detached housing market in Tokyo, this paper attempts to measure demand-supply balance in housing market using a novel dataset on “property-level inquiry volume” from the online real estate web portal. Through logistic regressions, we decompose the volume of inquiries into their property characteristics. We first show that the inquiry level is recently increasing on suburban properties within a walkable distance to a railway station, suggesting a preference on transportation convenience. We also show that, as a property ages, the inquiry level does not decline and even increases in central area, possibly for a potential for renovation or reconstruction. We further show that, in outer suburb, the inquiry level for large properties is not so high as small ones, which implies that some mismatch exists between recent demands and existing housing stocks.