Decompositions of house price distributions over time: The rise and fall of Tokyo house prices

Abstract We use recentered influence function regressions to decompose the differences in the distribution of sales prices across five stages of the business cycle in Tokyo for 1986–2016. Tokyo's housing market went through a period of rapid appreciation in prices during this time, followed by a long period of decline and a more recent increase. We find that a substantial portion of the change in the distribution of condominium prices across time periods is due to the natural aging of the housing stock, but also due to the location of the sales and the tendency for units to get larger over time.