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A study of the relationship between changes in housing values and variations in macroeconomic factors

A Research Report
presented to the
Graduate School of Business Leadership
University of South Africa.
In partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the
MASTERS DEGREE IN BUSINESS LEADERSHIP,
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA / The purpose of this research is to analyse the changes in housing values in
Windhoek, Namibia over the past ten years and explore links in property value
variation to macroeconomic changes during that period. The objectives of this
research are twofold. Firstly this research compiles and assesses the movement of
housing values over the past ten years. Secondly this research assesses if there is a
causal relationship between changes in macroeconomic factors and housing values,
and to define the nature of this relationship. The timing and magnitude of response
by housing values to changes in macroeconomic factors are investigated.
The primary data requirements for this study are a monthly relative value index of
housing prices for the Windhoek area and macroeconomic factors. Macroeconomic
data collected relates to macroeconomic conditions within Namibia that could have
an effect on housing prices. This includes information on housing supply, GDP,
population levels, inflation and interest rates. The results of this study explore the
relationship between these factors and changes in housing prices as reflected by
changes in the housing index.
The most significant result of this study is the effect of housing availability on housing
values. Changes in the total supply of housing as estimated by the number of
houses built in a month affect changes in housing values after 5 and 6 months. A
total of 20.5% of the change in housing values can be explained by the change in
total housing supply. The effect of interest rates found by this study was lower than
the theory and literature reviews would have led us to expect. The results of the
Pearson correlation test for the relationship between percentage changes in interest
rates and percentage changes in future housing values found that a relationship
exists 8 months after the change in interest rates occurred. Interest rates were found
to explain 5.5% of the change in housing values 8 months later.
No significant effects were noted for changes in inflation. For population and income
changes there was insufficient data to perform more than a high level look at
possible interactions with the level of housing prices. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

  1. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/61
Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/61
Date January 2007
CreatorsHaworth, Martin
PublisherUniversity of South Africa
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeResearch Report
Format1 online resource (vi, 93 leaves)

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