Homeownership rates and holdings of housing wealth differ immensely across countries. Using micro data from five economies, we estimate a life-cycle model with illiquid housing in which households face a discrete–continuous choice between renting and owning a house. We use the model to decompose the cross-country differences in the homeownership rate and the value of housing wealth into three groups of explanatory factors: house price expectations, the institutional set-up of the housing market and preferences. We find that all three groups of factors matter, although preferences less so. Differences in homeownership rates are strongly affected by (i) house price beliefs and (ii) the rental wedge, the difference between rents and housing maintenance costs, which reflects the quality of the rental market. Differences in the value of housing wealth are substantially driven by maintenance costs.
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