In recent years the rapidly growing Chinese real estate market has attracted the attention of investors from all over the world. Foreign investments in China, however, could be risky and difficult to be undertaken. This study investigates the opportunities and barriers that foreign real estate developers may experience in China. First, the features and the governmental role in the local real estate market are introduced. Next, the typical activities of a real estate investment are analyzed. Two US and Chinese cases are presented and compared. Lastly, opportunities and barriers to foreign investors are introduced and discussed. The study, in addition, contains some recommendations that are drawn from past successful foreign real estate investments.

Master of Arts / Department of Economics / LeiLei Shen / This paper aims to examine the effect of property taxes on selling prices in China’s real estate market. I collect the data in China’s 35 major cities before and after the property tax has been implemented, and estimate the effects of property taxes using the Differences-in-Differences method. I find that the effect of property taxes in Shanghai and Chongqing does not lead to lower house prices in these two cities.

Taiwan is a crowded island with a large population but limited soil resource. The government makes the most effective use of the land by making various integrative developments in order to create the maximum use of social welfare. The idea of land reorganization thus came out. Take the metropolis of Kaohsiung for example, the implementation of land readjustment not only led to economic prosperity, but also created a spillover-effect like the growth of land utilization, construction, population and industries inside and outside the reorganization areas. It also brought enormous benefits to the government, land owners and the whole citizens as well. The fluctuation of real estate market price in Taiwan is easily affected by its economic situation, people's fear of the expectation on the increase of price index, the domestic idle capital flood, and the dramatic rising of the stock market, which lead to the enormous growth of land value, so there should be a long-term balance among economic factors (GDP, interest rate, and exchange rate) and land value. As for the researches of the interrelationship between the analysis of the land value change of real estate and economic factors, most scholars chose cities in northern Taiwan as an example, fewer researches had been made for Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan. This paper, different from others, analyzes the public tender data of lands in every reorganization area in Kaohsiung City from the past few years. This paper aims at the long-term relationship of cointegration between the public tender data over the years of lands of readjustment area in Kaohsiung City and economic factors. The sample date is a long-term relationship from the year of 1962 to 2004 on such four parameters as Land value, GDP, interest rate, and exchange rate, which are the objects of this study, adopting the unit root test and Johansen¡¦s Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) as studying tools. As this study finds out, the phenomenon of cointegration really exists among these four parameters. The land value has negative correlation with interest rate, and positive correlation with the GDP, and exchange rate.

Abstract During the late 1980¡¦s, the stock market and real estate market in Taiwan both went into enormous booms. The Taiwan Stock Market Weighted Price Index (TSMWPI) and real estate prices both reach the highest peaks that they never reach before. It seems that there is a certain relationship between the stock market and real estate market. Therefore, this thesis proposes to study the following two propositions: (1) if the stock market and real estate market are integrated, then a certain degree of asset substitution will occur. The price of the assets in the two markets will interacted due to the asset substitution. And this price interaction will reduce the effect of risk diversifying. (2) But if the two markets are segmented, the effect the diversifying risk will get significant increasing as long as having the assets of the two markets included in your portfolio simultaneously. Past studies commonly investigated the relationship between the price series in these two markets, and therefore make the conclusions of their relationships. However, any individual price series cannot represent the activities of the whole market. Consequently, we adopt the Arbitrage Pricing Model (APM) to examine the relationships between the stock market and the real estate market in Taiwan. Our study is the first one to discuss this topic from the view of the market. Our study also tests causality relationship between the price series, but we have some improvements compared to the past studies. Our model includes an exogenous variable which captures the influence affecting both the stock market and real estate market at the same time. The test of casualty is also based on the cointegration theory. We test four cities in Taiwan, including the Taipei City, Taipei County, Taichung City and Kaohsiung City. Our findings suggest that the house price of the Taipei City and the Taipei County are co-integrated with the TSMWPI, that is, there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between the two cities and TSMWPI. The test of Granger Causality indicates that TSMWPI only Granger causes the house price of the Taipei City. All other causality relationships are not existed in these four cities. Finally, we use the APM to examine the relationship between the two markets and find that no evidence of relationship is existed between the stock and the housing market, suggesting that the stock market and the housing market in Taiwan are segmented. Key Words: Real Estate Market, Stock Market, Causality, CAPM

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The master's thesis deals with possibilities for using of spatial analyses for purposes of the real estate market in using geographic information system. The focus of this thesis is on the issues for the search of appropriate documents for project development in GIS and data processing. For the definition of functional spatial analyses are followed criteria of the property location, building location, transportation accessibility, availability of services, physical and geographical parameters, positive and negative effects of the environment, restrictions on use. GIS project is presented as an interactive map containing the input data and the individual spatial analyses which describe the analyzed factors or criteria affecting the real estate market. The results of analyses represent the advantage possibilities of using GIS for dealing with appropriate of practical use for the purpose of the real estate market.

Luxembourg has seen an unprecedented rise in homeownership prices in the last decade, hinting the existence of a speculatory bubble. Housing bubbles can have catastrophic effects on surrounding economies, so identifying them is paramount. This paper investigates Luxembourg’s housing prices and related factors in search for evidence of this bubble. The method consists of a two-stage econometric analysis of homeownership prices (dependent, HPI used for proxy) and its determining factors (independent, e.g. interest rates, incomes, population, etc.) spanning the last 15 years. First, all the time-series are tested for stationarity using the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test. Second, homeownership prices are tested for bivariate cointegration with the independent variable time-series using the Engle-Granger method. Cointegration of time-series is evidence of a shared long-run equilibrium, so absence of such relationships indicates market dysfunction. Under specific conditions, a speculatory bubble becomes the likely culprit. We identified no strong, statistically significant cointegrating relationships between homeownership prices and any of their determining factors. In combination with other indicators, we consider this to be admissible evidence for the existence of a bubble in Luxembourg’s housing market. We also suggest policy measures that could alleviate this potential bubble and discuss their likely outcomes.

The goal of this thesis is to analyze the current status of the Czech real estate market and to assess the outlook of the Czech real estate market to year 2016. The analysis will be performed using a strategic outlook as well as a competition benchmark. The prognosis of the future development of the Czech real estate market will be assessed by developing a comprehensive model capturing the development of revenues on the real estate market. From the public policy's point of view, this is a very up-to-date topic to analyze, as the real estate market is an important barometer of economic outlook in any country. The troubles that were brought by the US mortgage crisis have undoubtedly affected the situation on the real estate market in the Czech republic. The theoretical part of this work will characterize used definitions, such as public policy, economic cycle, economic crisis, real estate market, real estate market bubble, mortgage crisis etc. In the analytical part of this work I shall develop a model that captures the development of the Czech real estate market with focus on parameters of realized transactions in the given year and the development of prices. To evaluate the current situation of the market I shall conduct a strategic analysis and the estimated future development will be captured by conducting a regression analysis using historic data to estimate the development to year 2016.

The growing empirical literature testing informational efficiency of real estate markets uses data from various contexts and at different levels of aggregation. The results of these studies are mixed. We use a distinctive meta-analysis to examine whether some of these study characteristics and contexts lead to a significantly higher chance for identification of an efficient real estate market. The results generated through meta-regression suggest that use of stock market data and individual level data, rather than aggregate data, significantly improves the probability of a study concluding efficiency. Additionally, the findings neither provide support for the suspicion that the view of market efficiency has significantly changed over the years nor do they indicate a publication bias resulting from such a view. The statistical insignificance of other study characteristics suggests that the outcome concerning efficiency is a context-specific random manifestation for the most part. (authors' abstract)

Language: English Title: The Housing Bubble in China Abstract: This paper studies the housing price boom in recent decade since 2003 in China. The study focuses on four municipalities of China, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing. Despite the fact that the whole country is suffering a sky soaring housing boom, this paper reveals a regional difference between two types of big cities. Better developed cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are experiencing greater volatility in the boom and economic fundamentals have less explanatory power to the price increases. Oppositely, less developed cities such as Tianjin and Chongqing have relatively sustainable housing prices which are better supported by economic fundamentals. Finally, this paper concludes that Beijing and Shanghai are experiencing a bubble in the housing prices, if the public expectation on economic growth cannot maintain, the bubble will burst.