Fundamentals and the volatility of real estate prices in China: A sequential modelling strategy

We propose a sequential strategy in five steps integrating several techniques previously developed in a piecemeal and scattered way. First, we construct daily hedonic prices. Second, in order to search for the possible presence of bubbles on such high-frequency data, we propose using recently developed tests of an explosive root as an alternative to the unit root hypothesis. The third step is generated by the necessity of handling microstructure noise present at a daily frequency, thus filtering the raw data to extract a random walk component. The fourth step extracts a slowly changing monthly volatility component from the filtered daily hedonic real estate data. Finally, in so far as the presence of bubbles does not seem to characterize the residential housing market in major Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, in a fifth step we show that fundamentals are able to explain slowly changing volatility, as well as transaction volumes in these first‐tier cities.