Abstract:
This paper uses recent data for single-family home purchases to study the effects of theGerman real estate transfer tax. We aim to separate the tax’s short-term anticipatoryeffects from its long-term effects on real estate transactions. The data indicate that anincrease in the transfer tax is negatively correlated with the number of transactions thattake place in the market for single-family homes. We estimate that a one percentagepoint higher transfer tax produces enormous anticipation effects and yields approximately6% fewer transactions over the long run.