The Macroeconomics of Real Estate Investing

This dissertation explores macroeconomic aspects of residential and commercial real estate markets. The dissertation consists of three essays on topics in real estate investing, referring to investment in commercial property and in residential property other than owner-occupied housing. There are two main dimensions of the dissertation: one that looks at households’ holdings of investment real estate and another that looks at the information content of large data sets of macroeconomic and financial variables for forecasting real estate investment trust (REITs) returns. A third chapter of the dissertation also provides an overview of prior research, noting gaps that remain from both the consumer portfolio choice perspective and macroeconomic forecasting view.