The reliability of self-reported home values in a developing country context

Abstract

We analyze the reliability of homeowners¿ estimates of the value of their houses, in a household survey (of poor suburbs) of a developing country. We show that non-response to the home value question by the owner is uncorrelated with the appraised value of the house and other demographic characteristics of the respondent. We also document that homeowners with long tenure largely overestimate the value of their home. Moreover, both the bias and the lack of precision in homeowners¿ estimates are correlated with tenure, but not with socioeconomic characteristics. However, we also show that self-reported home values from short-tenure homeowners can be used to obtain unbiased and precise estimates of the average house value at the census tract level.