An Evaluation of Hedonic Price Indexes for Thirty‐four Large SMSAs

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, a set of price indexes are developed for thirty‐four metropolitan areas for the years 1975 and 1978. Indexes are also broken down by central city and suburb for twenty two of the metropolitan areas. These indexes measure variation in the price per unit of owner‐occupied housing stock and the price per unit of housing services of rental housing. Confidence intervals are constructed for the price indexes. It is found that the indexes are reasonably precise measures in that the typical ratio of the confidence interval to the predicted median rent or value is about 13%. Also, analysis of the confidence intervals indicates substantial and statistically significant variation in the price of housing stock and services among the metropolitan areas studied. One of the major benefits of this set of indexes is that it can be used to address one of the most important questions in real estate — Why do housing prices and rents vary among metropolitan areas and over time? Research projects are currently underway that use the data to address these two questions.