Any homeowner incurs costs for maintenance and repairs, which lower the rental yield and thus the effective return on housing. We deal with this issue by the choice of the benchmark rent-price ratios. Specifically, we anchor to the Investment Property Database (IPD), whose rental yields reflect net income—net of property management costs, ground rent, and other unrecoverable expenditure—as a percentage of the capital employed. The rental yields calculated using the rent-price approach detailed in Section II.D are therefore net yields. To enable a like-for-like comparison, our historical benchmark yields are calculated net of estimated running costs and depreciation. Running costs are broadly defined as housing-related expenses excluding interest, taxes, and utilities—that is, maintenance costs, management, and insurance fees.