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To buy or not to buy: household risk hedging of housing costs
Author(s) -
Liu Shuo,
Wang Jin,
Wu Weixing
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
accounting and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.645
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-629X
pISSN - 0810-5391
DOI - 10.1111/acfi.12333
Subject(s) - hedge , renting , residence , volatility (finance) , economics , business , investment (military) , demographic economics , finance , ecology , politics , political science , law , biology
This study studies Chinese households’ decision between buying or renting a primary residence from a risk hedging perspective. Although homeownership means bearing house price risk, it eliminates exposure to rent risk. Our empirical results suggest that the homeownership rate increases with the rent volatility of living areas and decreases with the probability of move. However, households no longer hedge against the rent risk when owning a second house, which is often purchased as an investment property. Furthermore, we investigate households with heads aged over 60. Due to finite life expectancy, the rent hedging benefit of owning is weakened.