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With the rapid increase in both household discretionary income and housing price, how to improve housing affordability is the vital challenge for China, especially for the northwestern region where the household income is lower than that in the eastern region. This paper aims to provide an insight into the housing affordability by analyzing the influence factors of purchasing standard housing in Lanzhou, which is the second largest city in Northwest China.

Price to income ratio (PIR) and housing affordability index (HAI) approaches were applied in this study to measure housing affordability for Lanzhou.

The results show that the PIR values for Lanzhou range from 6.02 to 7.23 between 2001 and 2008. The value exhibits an increasing trend before 2004 and a decreasing trend after 2004. The HAI values vary between 62.0 and 83.2 and are higher from 2001 to 2003 than those from 2004 to 2008. It was observed that the level of influence of the household discretionary income, housing price and the mortgage interest rate on these two values differs significantly in the different studied periods. This indicates that housing affordability in Lanzhou is lower than the acceptable level.

The paper establishes an understanding of the level of housing affordability in Northwest China, and provides the basis for the formulation of the new government's housing policy for this region.

This study aims to construct alternative models to establish the dynamic relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability by estimating both the short- and long-run relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability for 18 OECD countries from 1975Q1 to 2022Q4. After that, this study demonstrates how this nexus behaves during high and low inflation regimes and turbulent times.

This study uses the panel autoregressive distributed lag technique to examine the nexus between housing affordability to capture the distinct characteristics of the sample countries and estimate various short- and long-run dynamics in the relationship between housing affordability and exchange rate.

Exchange rate appreciation improves housing affordability in the short run, whereas this connection tends to dissipate in the long run. Moreover, inflation can worsen housing affordability during turbulent times, such as the global financial crisis, in both the short and long run. Ignoring these changes in the relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability during turbulent times can lead to incorrect conclusions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the association between exchange rates and housing affordability by demonstrating how these variables behave in high and low inflation regimes and turbulent times.

The purpose of this study paper is to highlight certain related barriers and issues of housing affordability and examine the factors that influence housing affordability in Malaysia.

This study used panel data including several variables, namely, household expense, population, home financing, interest rate, inflation rate (IF) and rental rate (RR). The regression models of panel data, namely, the ordinary least square model, the fixed effects model and the random effects model, were evaluated for their suitability.

The findings revealed that RR and IF have a positive and significant impact towards housing affordability. The results provide strong evidence that RR as alternative in determining the home affordability as it helped in reducing the cost and the financing duration period of houses while at the same time increasing the level of capability of homeownership. Meanwhile, the level of IF has positive and significant impact towards housing affordability because it will cause a drop or increase in the purchasing power of households, as well as a decline or increase in the capability to own a house.

The most significant aspects to consider when analysing housing affordability in Malaysia are demand and supply. However, this study focuses on only five variables and only covers Malaysia. As a result, future researchers should analyse the study’s location, such as by region or district, and include additional variables from both the demand and supply sides. Homeownership of affordability requires a broader and more realistic definition in the current context of a more disruptive environment where technology such as fintech, blockchain and the internet of things acts as enablers for not only promoting homeownership but also ensuring homeownership sustainability. As a result, democratising Islamic home financing appears to be a viable option that requires rethinking, and further research is recommended.

The study proposes an end-to-end solution to promote homeownership levels by considering the level of RR as significant variables among stakeholders such as the house buyers/owners, sellers, investors as well the government agencies in influencing affordability in Malaysia.

This paper discusses the indicators of housing affordability index over the 21-year period of 2000–2020, covering all states in Malaysia. The comparison of affordability level can be seen through all states and by regions. Besides that, the findings revealed that RR and IF have a positive and significant impact towards housing affordability. RR is considered an essential variable in promoting homeownership in Malaysia and warrants further investigation towards policy implication. This paper also provides contribution on data on RR by states in Malaysia that can be used by policymakers to some extent.

From the perspective of housing affordability, Portugal is an interesting case study, considering that Portugal ranks 5th in terms of price-to-income ratio and has experienced, since 2015, a significant increase in real estate prices.

The provision of housing is a critical social development factor. With the growing worldwide urbanization and the demand pressure over real estate in many cities, the problem of affordability has gained increase attention by policy makers. Housing affordability is hardly a new topic from a literature perspective, but the recent post-pandemic worldwide inflation growth has re-centered affordability as key topic in the housing agenda. This paper provides a comprehensive overview on past literature and a detailed analysis on the Portuguese market at the municipal level, by analyzing the changes in housing affordability in recent years.

Despite this growth, overall, affordability has improved. The study also shows the importance of municipal-level analysis, given the significant geographical differences. The authors' study confirms that many municipalities, outside metropolitan areas, exhibit low levels of affordability. Nevertheless, markets with higher average real estate values tend to exhibit even lower affordability, outpacing the higher levels of income.

Previous studies have focused on affordability issues on a national or highly aggregated level or focusing only on the two largest metropolitan areas in the country. This paper provides a deeper understanding on the inequalities of housing affordability between Portuguese municipalities.

Previous studies on housing affordability in China were concentrated in China’s coastal and central regions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate housing affordability of urban residents in Northwest China. Moreover, this paper attempts to understand the consistency and influencing factors of various indicators on the evaluation of housing affordability.

This paper uses multiyear data on house sales, residents’ incomes and living expenses from 2011 to 2022. House price-to-income ratio, housing affordability index and residual income approach were calculated by using these data and used as the measure of housing affordability.

The results show that there are obvious differences in the housing affordability among the Xi’an, Lanzhou and Yinchuan during 2011–2022, and the housing affordability of residents in cities with small population and economic scale is better. The ability of most urban residents to afford suitable housing is still poor, and the ability to afford small-sized housing is better. Most families with below-middle income have poor housing affordability. It is also observed that although various indicators had similarities in the evaluation of residents’ housing affordability, the comprehensive evaluation results of multiple indicators were more reliable.

The research results provide a basis for the decision-making of the government’s urban housing policy and improvement of residents’ housing conditions.

The results have a clear understanding of the housing affordability of urban residents in Northwest China. The study found that the geographical location and topography of the city is also a factor affecting the housing affordability.

This paper aims to investigate homeownership affordability in Nigeria’s urban housing market to establish the determinants of households’ affordability outcomes, and the nature of their impact.

The cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of households selected through a stratified random technique across Kaduna State, the study area. The binary logistic regression was used to model the probability of homeownership affordability as a function of specified explanatory variables.

Household income, savings, construction period and education are determinants of homeownership affordability with positive impact. Conversely, household size, cost of land, building cost inflation, current rental housing expenditures, non-housing expenditures and building cost relative to income are determinants of affordability with negative impact.

The findings have the potential to provide a framework for formulation of policy measures to improve access to homeownership.

Delayed access to homeownership places pressure on the rented sector with the potential for rental housing affordability problems. It is a deferment of the actualisation of a strong aspiration which is detrimental to individual and family well-being and stability.

The study extends the housing affordability debate to housing markets operating on informal financing where households build rather than buy their homes, an area hitherto not deeply explored. It provides empirical basis for problem-solving on housing affordability and can be a framework for housing policy reforms in Nigeria.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the affordability of Malaysian housing market, sufficiency of affordable housing and factors influencing the housing affordability in Malaysia.

In this study, qualitative research approach was adopted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten industry practitioners from developers and real estate agencies and further validation with three industry experts.

The findings reveal that housing affordability is a grave concern to average Malaysians, and the supply of affordable housing is insufficient in the current residential property market. Income, property price, land cost and demand and supply are identified as significant factors affecting housing affordability.

The research findings provide an insight rather than definitive information, as the small sample size could limit the generalizability of the findings. Future research can include participants from the public sector and focus on the policy options.

This paper provided numerous policies to ensure successful deliverability of affordable housing which eases government to partner with private sector to formulate a systematic framework for implementation of affordable housing programs and schemes.

There is a need for government to pay more attention to housing needs of middle-income groups. Also, the government is urged to ensure transparent balloting process in every implementation of affordable housing programs.

The paper emphasised the issues of undersupply of affordable housing and mismatch of property price and income. The paper also highlights the key reasons behind high housing affordability index. Hence, it is hoped that this paper will encourage positive debate and gain some attention from the policymakers, practitioners and researchers in Malaysia and beyond.

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the transitional dynamics of housing affordability indicators of major cities in three developed countries: the USA, Canada and Australia, in the period after the global financial crisis. As the global housing markets are more interconnected today, it is essential to investigate the demographic movement pattern and their impacts on housing market dynamics.

Based on the Markov transition matrix approach and the stochastic kernel technique, a newly established framework named the mobility probability plot (MPP) is adopted to investigate the city-level trends of housing affordability in the three countries during the period 2008-2015.

The results suggest that the transitional dynamics of the USA’s housing affordability trend saliently differs from those of Canada and Australia: in the USA, MPP results reveal that when the price-to-income (P/I) ratio is higher than 3.5 times, it has a high tendency of moving downward in the next period. In Australia, housing affordability tends to continue deteriorating when the P/I ratios are in the range from 8.0 to 8.6. In Canada, the MPP analysis indicates that the P/I ratios tend to increase further when the ratios are between 5.7 and 7.0, and within the range of 8.3-9.5.

This paper adopts an innovative approach to explore the city-level trends of housing affordability in the three developed countries during the period 2008-2015. The distribution dynamics approach has several virtues: first, this approach does not merely focus on the issue of housing affordability but also includes an analysis of the underlying housing affordability distribution. Second, it can clearly show the mobility of the city-level units in terms of the P/I change. Third, it can predict the proportion of the entities in different P/I ratio bands in a number of years ahead and even in the long run.

The study looks at the characteristics of upswings and downswings for UK housing cycles. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse cycles in house prices and housing affordability on the characteristics of persistence, magnitude and severity.

The paper draws upon the triangular methodology of cycles and utilises housing data from the last three decades.

From an empirical perspective, the study obtained four main results. First, the graphical trajectory of cycles in house price and housing affordability is highly synchronized. Second, upturns in both cycles tend to be longer than downturns on average. Third, the recent upturn in house prices and housing affordability is characterised by larger duration, magnitude and severity than the earlier case. Fourth, the latest downturn in both cycles is highly synchronised in terms of time occurrence, persistence, magnitude and severity; in addition, in both cases, the latest downturn is considerably smaller than the previous one. The study additionally indicates that on average the length of a complete house price and housing affordability cycle is 19 years on a peak-to-peak basis.

This paper is essentially exploratory and raises a number of questions for further investigation. Future research should, first, arrive at a more nuanced definition of affordability and, second, examine causality. The fact that two phenomena appear to have some significant synchronicity is not an indication that they are interdependent, although logic would suggest they might be.

This is among the few papers that analyses cycles in UK house prices. It is the first study that draws attention to the housing affordability cycle and the first to compare cycles in house prices with cycles in housing affordability.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the long-run housing affordability of Malaysia over time for households at various income levels and to demonstrate how short- and long-run affordability measures can reach contradicting conclusions.

In this study, a long-run housing affordability index (HAI) for Malaysia was constructed for the sample period 1995 to 2014, using data from house prices and household incomes. The HAI was also modified to compute a mortgage affordability index (MAI) to account for intergenerational transfers.

The results show that households at the 25th income percentile cannot afford any of the four dwelling types in Malaysia. For households at the 40th income percentile and the median income levels, high-rise and terrace housing are affordable. However, significant downward trends in HAI and MAI are documented beginning 2009, which indicates increasing housing stress for households at or below the median income. The short-run affordability measure represented by the median multiple (MM) indicator showed bleaker conclusion for housing affordability, with all dwelling types considered unaffordable over the entire sample period

On the basis of the empirical results, this paper provided several long-term proposals to ameliorate the housing affordability problem in Malaysia.

With the MM ratio being the official affordability measure reported for Malaysia, this study introduces the nation’s first long-run housing affordability measure. It is hoped that this long-run measure will achieve widespread adoption in Malaysia. Given the deteriorating long-term affordability, this study offers several possible long-term solutions.