Theta model forecasts of quarterly and monthly dwelling prices in the UK

Abstract

The current paper is an expansion of the paper ‘Theta Model Forecasts Real Estate Values’, presented at the European Real Estate Society (ERES) Conference, 2006. In the former paper, the Theta method was compared with other forecasting methods in forecasting quarterly housing prices in the UK. The theta method had then produced the best forecasts, on average, with the smallest mean errors. Additional data are used here, representing the total average dwelling prices in the UK, and are organized into months, from January 1983 up to September 2006. This paper examines the present state of the UK housing market and tests the theta method on the new monthly data. The time-series data used for forecasting are again provided from the Halifax House Price Index, and cover different categories of buyers (all, first-time buyers and home movers) and houses (all, new and existing). Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.