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comparative housing policy

The Role of Housing Costs in Central Banks’ Inflation Targeting Regimes: The Cases of the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of England

The Role of Housing Costs in Central Banks’ Inflation Targeting Regimes: The Cases of the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of England

Since the 1990s it has become common for central banks to be charged with using interest rates to meet consumer price inflation (CPI) targets. This article examines the cases of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Bank of England (BoE) and finds that whereas the RBA’s CPI target includes a housing cost element, the BoE’s does not. Moreover, it finds that contrasting treatments of housing costs produce different results, depending on whether the index includes mortgage interest as a housing cost. Whilst central banks dislike CPIs that include an element of mortgage interest because of the apparently perverse outcome of increasing interest rates, they also lack credibility by excluding such an important element of the cost of living. Credibility demands that the 30-year consensus on inflation targeting by monetary policy be replaced by a broader set of tools – including fiscal policy – to control inflation.

17.10.2023 | Mark Stephens | Volume: 10 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 15-28 | 10.13060/23362839.2023.10.2.556

Housing Market in Central European City during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Housing Market in Central European City during the  COVID-19 Pandemic

Many aspects of the global economy changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, including the real estate market. This study examines the primary residential property market in Opole during the Covid-19 pandemic. It uses property transaction data from 2018 to 2021 to conduct statistical analyses and independent group tests and also takes into account the real-estate price trend from 2014 to 2020. The study finds that both property prices and preferences relating to the structure and location of housing changed during the pandemic. In the case of Opole, the number of transactions involving residential units in the primary market increased in 2020 compared to previous years. After adjusting the unit price value of residential properties for the trend in the pre-pandemic period, the study finds that there was also an increase in property transaction prices. The study confirms three important facts relating to phenomena that are occurring globally in cities today. First, local communities are more diverse in terms of the economic heterogeneity of real estate buyers. Second, unlike big urban areas, small cities may be more resistant to the process of citizens migrating to suburban areas, thereby limiting the negative phenomenon of urban sprawl. Third, the housing real estate market in small cities is considered a reliable form of investment of assets, as real estate prices increased during the Covid-19 pandemic.

14.6.2023 | Jan K. Kazak, Natalia A. Kłysz, Joanna A. Kamińska | Volume: 10 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 27-38 | 10.13060/23362839.2023.10.1.551
Housing Finance in the Aftermath of the Foreign-Currency Mortgage Crisis in Eastern Europe

Whither Peripheral Financialisation? Housing Finance in Croatia since the Global Financial Crisis

Whither Peripheral Financialisation? Housing Finance in Croatia since the Global Financial Crisis

This article analyses recent developments in Croatian housing finance to update the established account of housing finance and peripheral financialisation in Eastern Europe that is based on the boom-bust cycle of the 2000s and early-to-mid 2010s. During the bust stage of that cycle, changes in regulation and in the behaviour of debtors and creditors resulted in deleveraging and a shift away from the risky and exploitative lending practices characteristic of peripheral housing finance. However, new increases in household debt and housing prices since 2016–17, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, seem to have reversed these trends. While a boom-bust cycle of similar scope and modality to the first one is unlikely to be repeated, peripheral forms of housing finance have persisted to some degree.

23.6.2022 | Marek Mikuš | Volume: 9 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 57-67 | 10.13060/23362839.2022.9.1.541
Housing Finance in the Aftermath of the Foreign-Currency Mortgage Crisis in Eastern Europe

Forex Mortgages and Housing Access in the Reconfiguration of Hungarian Politics after 2008

Forex Mortgages and Housing Access in the Reconfiguration of Hungarian Politics after 2008

After a boom in foreign-currency denominated (forex) mortgage loans in the 2000s and the resulting debt crisis in 2008-2009, Hungary’s debt management came to be defined by a highly politicised combination of several phenomena: the existence of a large social base at risk of defaulting on their mortgages; the integration of debtors’ struggles into a shift from the post-socialist dominance of neoliberalism to a national conservative political hegemony during the crisis years; and the political foregrounding of forex debt management in the post-2010 Orbán governments’ construction of a new financial model as part of a post-neoliberal authoritarian capitalist regime. The article traces how two main aspects of the forex mortgage crisis, housing debt under dependent financialisation and the problem of limited housing access, became integrated into Hungary’s electoral politics and macroeconomic transformation in the last decade.

21.6.2022 | Ágnes Gagyi | Volume: 9 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 78-86 | 10.13060/23362839.2022.9.1.543

Understanding the Economic Situation of People Who Took a Foreign Currency Mortgage in Hungary and Poland

Understanding the Economic Situation of People Who Took a Foreign Currency Mortgage in Hungary and Poland

In this article we show that significant differences between the foreign currency mortgage agreements in Hungary and Poland led to significant differences in monthly mortgage payments after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) erupted. Hungarian banks were able to add a variable markup to the LIBOR3M that was connected to bank risk on top of the usual fixed markup. We compare the monthly mortgage payments and LTV levels of people who took out a CHF mortgage with those who obtained a local currency mortgage during the mortgage boom years of 2006–2008. We find that in the initial years of the mortgage CHF mortgages were cheaper than local currency mortgages, which allowed more people to buy housing. However, the GFC led to a deterioration of the exchange rate, and monthly payments and LTV levels (consequently?) increased. We analyse the mortgage costs and LTV levels of the 2006-2008 foreign currency (FX) mortgage vintages in Hungary and Poland between 2006 and 2020 and compare them to local currency mortgages. We also simulate the effects of changing housing prices and wages on mortgages in the cities of Budapest and Warsaw.

3.3.2022 | Hanna Augustyniak, Adrienne Csizmady, József Hegedüs, Jacek Łaszek, Krzysztof Olszewski, Eszter Somogyi | Volume: 9 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 1-15 | 10.13060/23362839.2022.9.1.536

Welfare State and the Gender Dissimilarity Index in Homelessness. A Comparison of Norway, Belgium and Poland

Welfare State and the Gender Dissimilarity Index in Homelessness. A Comparison of Norway, Belgium and Poland

This article investigates the structural underpinnings of gender dissimilarities in homelessness from a comparative perspective. The Gender Dissimilarity Index is introduced as a simple measure for quantifying the unevenness of the distribution of men and women across the ETHOS-light categories. Three gendered aspects of the welfare state are considered and compared for Norway, Belgium, and Poland: employment and childcare, housing, and homelessness policies. Based on available data, it appears that the most uneven distribution of genders may indicate a combination of the promotion of the male breadwinner model and relatively broad support for people who are homeless, but also the shortage of affordable housing. A more gender-balanced homeless population may be the result of a combination of housing-led approaches and degenderising policies. However, a similar distribution may be attributed to states with implicitly genderising policies coupled with ‘traditional’ attitudes towards gender roles and a lack of adequate responses to women’s needs.

17.3.2021 | Magdalena Mostowska | Volume: 8 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 11-23 | 10.13060/23362839.2021.8.1.519
Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Introduction to the Special Issue: Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Introduction to the Special Issue: Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Editorial.

8.6.2020 | József Hegedüs | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 1-4 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.498
Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Rethinking the Concept of ‘Housing Regime’

Rethinking the Concept of ‘Housing Regime’

‘Housing regime’ is a term that is used relatively often in (macrosocial) research comparing housing policies and systems. However, there is no generally accepted definition of this term. In this paper I shall first scrutinise previous uses of the concept, starting with a discussion of the most famous regime concept – the welfare regime. The discussion paves the way for a redefinition of a ‘housing regime’: the set of fundamental principles according to which housing provision operates in some defined area (municipality, region, state) at a particular point in time. Such principles are thought to be embodied in the institutional arrangements that relate to housing provision, in the political interventions that address housing issues, and as in the discourses through which housing issues are customarily understood. This definition is compatible with the path-dependence approach that has been adopted here and with the aspects of reality that researchers want to capture using the ‘regime’ concept.

7.6.2020 | Hannu Ruonavaara | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 5-14 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.499
Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Incremental Change in Housing Regimes: Some Theoretical Propositions with Empirical Illustrations

Incremental Change in Housing Regimes: Some Theoretical Propositions with Empirical Illustrations

The durable structures of housing and housing institutions are often subject to long-term processes of incremental change. Nevertheless, housing studies have largely focused either on static snapshots of policies or, more recently, on the inertia of institutional path dependence, while processes of incremental change have been almost entirely neglected. Political scientists (Streeck/Thelen/Mahoney) have proposed a typology of patterns of incremental institutional change, and this paper explores the applicability of this typology to housing structures and housing institutions. We draw on empirical illustrations from the housing literature to show how five types of change – layering, conversion, displacement, drift, exhaustion – apply to housing structures and institutions. We conclude with some general observations on how the typology can be used in further studies of developments in national housing regimes.

6.6.2020 | Bo Bengtsson, Sebastian Kohl | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 15-24 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.500
Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Classifying Housing Regimes. Is it Worth Doing? What are the Alternatives?

Classifying Housing Regimes. Is it Worth Doing? What are the Alternatives?

Comparative housing research is hindered by attempts to provide broad empirical categorisations of types of Housing Regimes and their equivalents and sweeping cross-country generalisations about their effects. Regime theory is right to recognise the housing provision is and can be organised in different ways but proselytises too strongly. Real issues and policy debates in countries are instead embedded in the existence of specific, tenure related, networks of housing provision and they widely differ across the world. Taking that on board can lead to more fruitful understandings.

4.6.2020 | Michael Ball | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 36-48 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.502
Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Understanding Housing Development in New European Member States - a Housing Regime Approach

Understanding Housing Development in New European Member States - a Housing Regime Approach

The paper will address the development of housing regimes in the new EU member states,introducing the analytical framework of a housing sector matrix to classifyforms of housing by tenure andintegration mechanism. Thus, ourhousing sector matrixcombines two common approaches: thestructure of housing provision (Ball and Harloe 1992) and the tenure-focused approach (Kemeny 1981, 1995). Starting from this rough typology of housing provisions, we also take further factors that have a major impact on the behaviour of stakeholders/actors into consideration, namely the legal/regulatory environment and the subsidy/tax system, to define the housing regimes. In its analysing of the development of the new member states the paperdifferentiates between global factors (economic development model, countries’ position in global economic structures, etc.) and local factors like the political/power structure, mainstream social ideology, the interplay betweendifferent stakeholders, etc. Institutional analyses (Bengtsson and Ruonavaara 2010) that take path-dependent factors into account are thus best able to address the process by which new housing regimes emerged in post-socialist countries and the degree to which we find convergence/divergence trends. The paper analyses three junctures in the development process after 1990: radical changes after the collapse of the old system; the development of the mortgage market and the regulation of the social sector at the turn of 2000; and reactions to the financial crisis of 2008. The paper concludes that the new member states are following the same trajectory despite their institutional differences.

3.6.2020 | József Hegedüs | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 49-62 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.503
Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Integrating Varieties of Capitalism, Welfare Regimes, and Housing at Multiple Levels and in the Long Run

Integrating Varieties of Capitalism, Welfare Regimes, and Housing at Multiple Levels and in the Long Run

The title conveys all the elements of this article. The typologies of capitalist economies, the typologies of welfare regimes, and the typologies of rental and owner-occupied housing regimes should be synchronised and combined, not selectively, but systematically. Integration will have to determine the multiple levels to which these typologies can be applied and on which they can interact. Owing to the persistence of housing institutions and buildings, a long-term (historical) view is also suggested – at all levels of analysis.

2.6.2020 | Walter Matznetter | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 63-73 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.504
Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Comparing Local Instead of National Housing Regimes? Towards International Comparative Housing Research 2.0.

Comparing Local Instead of National Housing Regimes?  Towards International Comparative Housing Research 2.0.

This paper makes a plea for a new form of international comparative housing research, in which not countries (national housing regimes) but cities or regions (local housing regimes) are the unit of analysis. Why do we need such a new comparative research approach? How can a local housing regime be conceptualised? By answering these questions, the paper attempts to lay the conceptual foundation for international comparative housing research 2.0.

1.6.2020 | Joris Hoekstra | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 74-85 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.505

Exploring Young Europeans’ Homeownership Opportunities

Exploring Young Europeans’ Homeownership Opportunities

Even before the 2008/9-crisis but certainly afterwards, trends in labour, housing and mortgage markets combined with welfare reform, making it more difficult for each new cohort of young Europeans (25-34) to complete the transition to ‘residential independence’, particularly to become a homeowner. This paper explores ‘trends in homeownership opportunities’, using data from EU-SILC (2005-2018). It takes a broader perspective by exploring trends in its social selectivity, as well as changes in the ‘attributes’ of homeownership over time. Young adults’ homeownership opportunities have declined almost everywhere in Europe, but to varying extents. Furthermore, a more socially selective group of young homeowners seems to be entering properties of lower quality in locations with fewer services. Deteriorating homeownership opportunities are strongly associated with mortgage lending restrictions, indicating that trends in housing and broader financial markets/policies are important explanatory factors. I also find indications that the transition to homeownership is being pushed beyond the commonly-used age-threshold of 34 years.

31.5.2020 | Caroline Dewilde | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 86-102 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.506

Informality and Affordability: Approaches from the Global South and Opportunities for the Global North

Informality and Affordability: Approaches from the Global South and Opportunities for the Global North

The changing world economy since the 1970s and the decrease in welfare and deregulation in the Global North have led to an inefficient and declining stock of affordable housing. In the Global South, the need to economically catch up with the Global North has led to a lack of sustainable affordable housing policies. Social and affordable housing policies in the Global South have been either non-existent or very inefficient. The aim of this short paper is to start a discussion (and contribute to the existing ones) on how the social dynamics of informal settlements may be a source of new approaches to the provision of affordable housing in the Global North and South. Despite their illegal status and characterisation as urban blight, informal settlements are frequently illustrative examples of collaborative processes in the areas of planning and development that depend on the social connections and relationships among squatter households.

18.12.2019 | Aysegul Can | Volume: 6 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 1-12 | 10.13060/23362839.2019.6.2.476

Family Housing Pathways: An Introduction to the Study of Housing in Poland in Biographical and Historical Perspectives

Family Housing Pathways: An Introduction to the Study of Housing in Poland in Biographical and Historical Perspectives

The article describes the approach and method of Family Housing Pathways. This process of gathering and presenting data makes it possible to include the extended family’s housing resources, the management of these resources, and the transformations of households within a family. Twenty-eight Family Housing Pathways were gathered and collected as part of an assignment given to students as part of an undergraduate course on housing problems. The exercise shed light on recurring themes in the transformation of the housing system in Poland that influence individual and family management of housing resources. Even a sample of relatively privileged families demonstrates that housing is clearly a crucial dimension, especially in times of transition, e.g. in post-communist Poland after 1989. The Family Housing Pathways approach could be a promising tool as well as an approach that combines biographical and historical housing perspectives, without losing sight of concerns of a practical and ethical nature.

16.12.2019 | Magdalena Mostowska | Volume: 6 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 13-23 | 10.13060/23362839.2019.6.2.488

‘Not for Housing’ Housing: Widening the Scope of Housing Studies

‘Not for Housing’ Housing: Widening the Scope of Housing Studies

Historically, the main focus of the study of housing in advanced economies has been on houses that meet the accommodation needs of households: houses as the main residence of families. In recent decades there has been the growth in the numbers of houses used for purposes other than as a main residence, for example in the forms of the recent global spread of Airbnb and of foreign engagement in housing as an investment tool. Specifically, the advance of disruptive, financialized technologies in various sectors has meant that alongside a set of ‘for housing’ houses (FHH) another, overlapping, set of ‘not for housing’ houses (NFHH) is emerging. The present paper begins by identifying four types of NFHH, and considers the significance of their growth. It argues that while the NFHH sector is relatively small it has large impacts, and these are such that they challenge housing researchers and policy makers to develop additional ways of looking at housing systems.

19.2.2019 | John Doling, Richard Ronald | Volume: 6 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 22-31 | 10.13060/23362839.2019.6.1.450
Housing Financialisation and Families

Housing and Asset Based Stratification in the Enrichment Economy

Housing and Asset Based Stratification in the Enrichment Economy

This paper explores the ways in which housing wealth is producing new forms of differentiation among households. In doing so, it will argue that ‘asset based welfare’ is now better conceived as ‘asset based social stratification’ and that social class rather than generation remains the primary social divide. However, these class divides are increasingly shaped by the differential ability to accumulate and deploy primarily housing -based assets. These new forms of social (re) stratification will vary societally, temporally and spatially and are currently most evident in what can be described as older, mature home ownership societies. But similar developments and emerging fissures can be observed in newer, ultra home -ownership societies such as China and in the broader interconnections between the mobilization of family assets and the shift from consumer to market societies.

9.12.2018 | Ray Forrest | Volume: 5 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 4-13 | 10.13060/23362839.2018.5.2.438
Housing Financialisation and Families

‘Generation Rent’ and Intergenerational Relations in The Era of Housing Financialisation

‘Generation Rent’ and Intergenerational Relations in The Era of Housing Financialisation

Home ownership has been in decline in a number of developed societies since the early-2000s driven, primarily, by declining entry among younger households who have been increasingly pushed into the rental sector. This trend has been associated with a growing intergenerational divide, or even conflict, and the emergence of ‘Generation Rent’. This paper explores the conditions surrounding diminishing access to owner-occupation among new households with a focus on the historic maturation of home ownership sectors, the restructuring of the political economy around financialized housing wealth and the inter-cohort dynamics surrounding the accumulation and transfer of housing wealth. The paper takes an international perspective drawing on evidence from two parallel, but contrasting cases: Japan and the UK. The analysis illustrates the interrelatedness of inter- and intra-generational inequalities, with the former reinforcing the latter. It also focuses on the role of families as both a moderator of generational inequity at the micro level as well as an enhancer of socioeconomic inequalities overall.

8.12.2018 | Richard Ronald | Volume: 5 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 14-26 | 10.13060/23362839.2018.5.2.439
Social Housing after the GFC: Further Evidence

Social Housing after the Global Financial Crisis: Further Evidence

Social Housing after the Global Financial Crisis: Further Evidence

Editorial.

29.12.2017 | Teresio Poggio, Christine Whitehead | Volume: 4 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 1-7 | 10.13060/23362839.2017.4.2.381
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