The impact of COVID-19 on the housing market: evidence from the Yangtze river delta region in China

ABSTRACT

We investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on the housing market in the Yangtze river delta region in China. We divide data into the groups of the municipality directly under the central government (first-tier city) and other provinces (second- and third-tier cities), and use average selling price of commercial housing to capture the performance of local housing market. The findings suggest significantly positive impacts of COVID-19 on housing price in this region, which implies the urgent needs of housing for families to stay together during the epidemic. The municipality directly under the central government (also the first-tier city) usually tends to have higher housing prices due to better economic and medical conditions and urban governance there, while such impacts shrink in the period of epidemic, implying the effective control of housing price there, which provides relevant policy guidance for other provinces and non-first-tier cities.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• Housing prices
• Emerging market
• Effective control

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• E44
• R21
• R31.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ http://www.stats.gov.cn/.

² We check other variables related to housing demand and find reliable data source for occupancy rate for the region (other than those for real estates for sale) are not available in our Bureau of Statistics..