Housing stock in Brazil: estimation based on a hedonic price model - BIS Papers No 21, part 21, April 2005

As an important aspect for the level of wealth, social welfare and economic growth, the housing stock, and more specifically, home ownership are significant structural mechanisms in the reduction of poverty and social inequalities. Nevertheless, the difficulties in measuring the prices of real capital such as housing are very well known. These difficulties stem, in part, from the heterogeneity of these non-standard assets and the infrequency of observed transactions with individual properties. Therefore, accurate measurement of real estate prices is important for both practical and theoretical purposes. In particular, we believe that our empirical findings regarding this subject will make a valuable contribution to the housing policy debate in Brazil, where the housing sector must perform efficiently to provide affordable homes, especially to lower income people.