Monitoring the Risk of Bubbles in the Housing Prices in Colombia

This work proposes a practical methodology for monitoring in real time the potential bubbles regarding the housing prices in Colombia. It is intended as an early warning system. The proposal is based on econometric models of time series under the assumption that a time series with bubbles shows sustained imbalance patterns concerning the speed and acceleration. The study is conducted with some methodologies not used before to deal with the housing market in Colombia and without including variables exogenous to the housing price indexes. The results indicate that the price indexes for used housing (PVU, Spanish acronym) in Colombia have been steady. No bubble pattern has been detected. However, in the last term under analysis (2013), the housing prices in Bogota show a significant imbalance between the speed and acceleration.