Are There Cycles in Real Estate Cycles Research? Evidence from 30 Years of Papers Presented at Real Estate Society Meetings

Abstract Since the 1990s, real estate cycles research (RECR) has become an important part of real estate research societies' annual meetings. Pyhrr, Born, Manning, and Roulac (2003) developed a framework for structuring and classifying the body of knowledge on RECR. Since 2003, extensive and growing diversity in RECR has suggested several inadequacies in the original framework. In this paper, we explain the expanded framework, and report the results of research that tracks and analyzes the relative emphasis of RECR. We analyze all papers presented at the meetings of the eight real estate research societies, covering three decades (1983–2012), including 15,178 papers presented on all topics, and 729 papers on specific cycles topics. We find that while there are identifiable cycles in RECR, they are not yet as pronounced or predictable as we expected.