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Published February 2014 | public
Journal Article

Superstition and "lucky" apartments: Evidence from transaction-level

Abstract

Using a sample of apartment transactions during 2004–2006 in Chengdu, China, we investigate the impact of superstitions in the Chinese real estate market. Numerology forms an important component of Chinese superstitious lore, with the numbers 8 and 6 signifying good luck, and the number 4 bad luck. We find that secondhand apartments located on floors ending with "8" fetch, on average, a 235 RMB higher price (per square meter) than on other floors. For newly constructed apartments, this price premium disappears due to uniform pricing of new housing units, but apartments on floors ending in an "8" are sold, on average, 6.9 days faster than on other floors. Buyers who have a phone number containing more "8"'s are more likely to purchase apartments in a floor ending with "8"; this suggests that at least part of the price premium for "lucky" apartments arises from the buyers' superstitious beliefs.

Additional Information

© 2013 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc. Received 18 January 2013; Revised 19 September 2013; Available online 11 November 2013. Ye thanks the HSS of MOE (No. 11YJC790244), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71273270 and No. 71133006) and Program of New Century Excellent Talents in University (No. NCET-10-0805) for supports.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 26, 2023