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This guide has been compiled to support students in ECON 212 Real Estate Economics.
This guide is maintained by Melody Chin.
This course is designed as an introductory course to study housing finance systems and housing market outcomes. It provides an overview of real estate markets, including both residential properties and commercial real estate, as well as public policies that affect these markets. The beginning of the course will focus on what determines house price movements (captured by house price indices) and the role of real estate cycles (including bubbles) in mortgage default. The course will then be devoted to analyzing mortgage instruments used to finance investments in real estate. This includes calculations of payment streams for different types of mortgages, consideration of different types of mortgage contracts that shift interest rate and default risk between lenders and borrowers, and the role of the secondary market for mortgage securities. The last portion of the course will be devoted to evaluating pricing and risk in commercial real estate markets (REIT structures). Equipped with aforementioned skills, this course helps students to develop an eye towards the role of housing and mortgage markets in the recent financial crisis as highlighted in the United States and potential policy implications for the local market.
