Credit generates information about supply and demand

Property derivatives will improve transparency in the real estate market. According to Tsetsekos and Varangis (2000), an active derivatives market plays an important role in facilitating an efficient determination of prices in the underlying spot market by improving transparency on current and future prices. A successful property derivatives market may have several feedback effects on its underlying properties and indices.

Derivatives and their prices generate information about supply and demand of market participants. After the establishment of a derivatives market and due to more and better information, efficiency in the spot market can very well improve. Derivatives make nontransparent prices visible. In particular, the observed derivative prices reveal the market’s expectations. The result could be that market participants anticipate price expectations faster, and nonrandom price moves such as cyclical behavior could partly be washed out. It is important not to confuse true cycles with autocorrelation in an index that may simply arise due to the index construction method. It can be assumed that prices of physical properties adapt faster to new information if there is a derivatives market.