Data and Code for: Quality-adjusted house price indexes

The constant-quality assumption in repeat-sales house price indexes (HPIs) introduces a significant time-varying attribute bias. The direction, magnitude, and source of the bias varies throughout the market cycle and across metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). We mitigate the bias using a data-driven textual analysis approach that identifies and includes salient text from real estate agent remarks in the repeat-sales estimation. Absent the text, MSA-level HPIs are biased downwards by as much as 7% during the financial crisis and upwards by as much as 20% after the crisis. The geographic concentration of the bias magnifies its effect on local HPIs.