The concept of an economic system of periodic regionalized price indices : possibilities for attaining regionalized data on rents and real estate prices

Abstract

"Recently the need for information about regionally differentiated price levels has been claimed by different statistics user groups. To answer these needs, the Federal Statistical Office of Germany is thinking about implementing currently conducted interregional price level comparisons in their program of price statistics. So the question of how to select the necessary price data for such a price index has become an important matter. Due to the very high costs of primary data collection, the willingness to use already existing data out of official and nonofficial statistics for the new interregional price level comparisons is high. Especially for real estate prices a multitude of commercial data collectors already exists. The aim of our article is to give an overview about all these potential data sources and to evaluate them by the strong requirements of official price statistics.<br> First, the article shows the general importance of the homogeneity of the selected items in the interregional price level comparison. Second, the special requirements concerning data sources for housing prices are being discussed. For this purpose, a system of 10 axioms is postulated that should preferably be fulfilled by the data source used to calculate interregional price index numbers. Later on, theses axioms are tested on all the potential data sources from official and nonofficial statistics presented in the article. The first data sources described in detail are the price collection for the intertemporal consumer price statistics and the house price index of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. Other surveys of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany which contain data on dwelling characteristics and housing prices are described in the second section. Section three gives a wide overview of potential nonofficial, i.e. commercial, data sources on regional real estate and rental data available in Germany. After testing all potential data sources by the 10 axioms postulated, no clear winner could be identified in the last section. But several nonofficial data providers have the potential to be considered as data suppliers for official statistics after a harmonization of their methodology with the special requirements of interregional price level comparisons." (Authors' abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Lippe, P. & Breuer, C. (2010): Konzept für ein wirtschaftliches System periodischer regionaler Preisindizes. Möglichkeiten zur Gewinnung regionaler Daten über Mieten und Immobilienpreise. In: J. Möller, E. Hohmann & D. Huschka (Hrsg.) (2010): Der weiße Fleck - zur Konzeption und Machbarkeit regionaler Preisindizes (IAB-Bibliothek, 324), p. 167-261.