Price Bubble in the Iranian Housing Market Based on the Structural Model of Housing Price Determination

During two last decades, Iranians have faced with a wide and substantial increase in housing prices, especially in great metropolitans such as Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan and Shiraz. This easily could be imputed to a high inflation which significantly impeded the access to housing for low and medium income families. This study uses a structural model to recognize the influential factors of such a rise in housing prices and to show whether there is any price bubble in market. The model consists of both supply and demand side determinants to explain the price changes across Iranian provinces over 1375-1390, in a panel data context. In particular, we use a longer and larger database which also includes more number of influential factors. Some specific features of data such as non-stationarity and cointegration have been also taken into account. Our results show that, in contrast to the common thought, there is no price bubble in the Iranian housing sector. That is, the structural model could well explain the rapid increase in Iranian house prices during the last decade. In particular, we find that the expansionary monetary policies of the government, the land price for urban uses, along with the increase of the real demand for housing are the main reasons of the past inflation in the sector. On the average, one percent increase in the urban land price or liquidity, ceteris paribus, leads to, respectively, 0.375 and 0.5 percent increase in house prices.