IMF Staff Country Reports

This paper discusses the findings, summary and recommendations of residential property price index (RPPI) statistics technical assistance mission in the Republic of Armenia. The authorities are strongly committed to developing a publicly available RPPI for Armenia. Reliable property price indices and other indicators of real estate markets are essential for the assessment of developments and risks in property markets and understanding the linkages between property markets and financial soundness, as well as to IMF surveillance. The institutional arrangements for the compilation and publication of the RPPI should be clarified. The mission recommended using the time dummy hedonic method with a four-quarter window length to compile quality-adjusted indices. The experimental indices for apartments developed during the mission—comprising six regional sub-indices, one index for Yerevan and one national index—were compared with a stratified median approach. The resulting hedonic indices contained less volatility; however, they exhibited a similar trend. Stability checks on the estimated shadow prices for each rolling window and each stratum were performed. Overall, the estimated coefficients have plausible signs and are reasonably stable over time.