市場關注與房市變化關聯性之驗證

An Examination of Market Attention in the Real Estate Market

心理學相關研究指出人對於訊息的處理能力是有限的，因此關注在何處以及關注的程度對於決策過程會產生重要的影響。有限的關注常使得人忽略一些有用的資訊，進而造成對市場做出過度或不足的判斷。本研究採用Google搜尋引擎的關鍵字搜尋量作為市場關注的代理變數，探討關注與房市價格、交易量、銷售天數及議價空間等四項指標間之關係。基本線性迴歸實證結果顯示，關注對此四項房市指標的影響在同期與落後一期是顯著的且估計係數的符號與理論相符，然而整體市場關注落後到兩期對房價的影響會出現反轉。關注門檻效果實證顯示，關注對房價、銷售天數與議價空間具有門檻效果。當整體房市關注在較低程度時，即會造成銷售天數與議價空間出現非線性變化；而住宅成屋關注在較低程度時，會使銷售天數產生非線性變化，然需累積到較高程度後，始造成房價的非線性變化。因果關係檢定發現整體房市關注與房價之間具有雙向因果關係，住宅成屋關注與交易量之間亦具有雙向因果關係。本研究成果應有助於了解市場參與者的心理因素與其如何影響房市之變化。

Psychological research indicates that people’s ability to process information is limited, so where and how much attention is paid will have an important impact on the decision-making process. Limited attention often makes people ignore some useful information and leads to excessive or insufficient judgments regarding the market. This study uses Google search volume as a proxy variable for market attention, and explores the relationship between market attention and four indicators, namely, housing prices, transaction volume, time-on-the-market and price concession. The empirical evidence obtained from basic linear regression shows that the impact of market attention on these four market indicators is significant during the corresponding period and lagged one period, and the signs of the regression coefficients are consistent with the theory. However, the direction of the relationship between the overall market attention and the housing price indicator is reversed when the variables are lagged two periods. The empirical findings of the threshold effect tests show that the attention has a significant threshold effect on housing prices, time-on-the-market and price concession. When the overall market attention accumulates to a relatively low level, it will cause time-on-the-market and price concession to have nonlinear changes. When the attention of the existing housing market accumulates to a relatively low level, it will cause a nonlinear change in time-on-the-market. However, only when the attention of the existing housing market accumulates to a relatively high level will it lead to nonlinear changes in housing prices. The VECM Granger causality tests show that there is a two-way relationship between the overall market attention and housing prices, and there is also a two-way relationship between the attention of the existing housing market and transaction volume. The findings of this study should contribute to a better understanding of the psychological factor of market participants and how it affects changes in the real estate market.