Spatial-Temporal Analysis of Residential Housing, Office Property, and Retail Property Price Index Correlations: Evidence from Ten Chinese Cities

Abstract

Using correlation-based hierarchical analysis and synchronization analysis, this study focuses on monthly price indices for residential homes, office buildings, and retail properties in ten major Chinese cities for the years 2005 to 2021. Through these analyses, one can identify interactions and interdependence among the price indices, heterogeneous patterns in synchronizations of the price indices, and their evolving paths with time. Empirical findings suggest that the degree of real estate price comovements across all property types and cities is relatively low and stable from January 2017 to February 2020, followed by significant increases during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 to January 2021 and significant decreases since February 2021 with the recovery of the economy. Several groups of property types and cities are determined in this study, each of which having its members reveal rather strong but volatile synchronizations of price indices. Rolling importance analysis does not suggest persistent increasing or decreasing trends for the real estate price associated with a specific property type and city. Policy studies on real estate price comovements may benefit from these findings here.