A Cross-Country Quarterly Database of Real House Prices: A Methodological Note

Abstract

We build from publicly available national sources a database of (nominal and real) house prices— complemented with data on personal disposable income (PDI)—for a selection of countries at a quarterly frequency, starting in the first quarter of 1975. We select a house price index for each country that is consistent with the U.S. FHFA quarterly nationwide house price index for existing single-family houses (formerly called OFHEO house price index), and extend the country series back to 1975 with available historical data/proxies whenever necessary. Each house price index is seasonally-adjusted and then rebased to 2005=100. The house price indexes are expressed in nominal terms, and also in real terms using the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) deflator of the corresponding country with the same base year of 2005=100. PDIs are always quoted in per capita terms using working age population of the corresponding country and similarly expressed in nominal and real terms (the latter with the PCE deflator). We aggregate all countries in the database, weighted by their IMF purchasing power parity-adjusted GDP shares in 2005, to compute an average (nominal and real) house price series and an average (nominal and real) per capita PDI series.