We take a long, broad, and theoretically agnostic view toward the connection between building costs and house prices in the US housing market. We find that building costs have never had all that much explanatory power over US housing prices, but even the imperfect correlations of the past have weakened further in recent decades along multiple dimensions

More on this topic

BFI Working Paper·Jan 21, 2026

FinTech and Customer Capital

Bianca He, Lauren Mostrom, and Amir Sufi
Topics: Financial Markets, Technology & Innovation
BFI Working Paper·Dec 10, 2025

Measurement Matters: Financial Reporting and Productivity

John M. Barrios, Brian C. Fujiy, Petro Lisowsky, and Michael Minnis
Topics: Financial Markets
BFI Working Paper·Sep 23, 2025

Dynamic Competition for Sleepy Deposits

Mark L. Egan, Ali Hortaçsu, Nathan A. Kaplan, Adi Sunderam, and Vincent Yao
Topics: Financial Markets