Risk and Return Within the Single-Family Housing Market

That market is dominated by homeowners, who constitute about two-thirds of U.S. households. For them the choice about how much housing and what house to buy is a joint consumption/investment decision. Furthermore, owner-occupied housing is by nature a lumpy investment whose risk cannot be completely diversified. Does this consumption/investment link negate the risk/return trade-off within the single-family housing market? Theory suggests the link still holds. This paper supplies empirical evidence in support of that theoretical result.