Are people aware of their (Housing)Wealth? Assessing Owner-Estimated Home Values in Survey and Experimental Data

Luxembourg National Research Fund

Housing wealth is a big issue. Big in terms of the number of people concerned: seven out of ten people in the EU live in a home they own. Big in terms of money: people’s housing wealth amounts to more than EUR 32 trillion in the euro area. And big in relative terms: more than 80% of the total euro area household wealth is real estate. However, do homeowners have an accurate picture of their wealth? If not, what are the reasons for this? Moreover, what are the consequences of the common use of homeowners’ own estimates, with regard to research, monitoring a country’s financial stability, and policymaking?
The ASSESS project will examine whether perceived housing wealth differs from ‘true’ values inferred from actual market prices, and will also investigate the consequence of treating subjective data as if it was objective. The project will also contribute to finding a better measurement of housing wealth and its distribution within society. Better data is a pre-requisite for discussing wealth inequality, and monitoring the financial vulnerability of households and the financial system as a whole.