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The purpose of this study is to analyze short- and long-run market-sensitive drivers of housing affordability. The study highlights an ongoing housing affordability crisis in an emerging market context by also providing an empirical tool to combat the crisis.

To investigate determinants of uniquely constructed effective housing affordability index and house price to income ratio index, the author uses a bound testing approach to cointegration and error correction models, besides causality tests, variance decompositions and impulse response functions. This study uses Turkish data for the period of 2007 M06 and 2017 M12.

The evidence suggests that the housing affordability crisis is mainly driven by credit expansion, rent and construction costs. A sensible housing policy response would target these variables. This evidence suggests that housing affordability mostly depends on housing market dynamics rather than policies because of the exogeneous/cyclical natures of the drivers.

Data constraints shape the study. A regional or an aggregate-level panel study cannot be developed because of a lack of data. This limitation inevitably results in the exclusion of relevant socio-economic/political factors and is also the main reason for the lack of comparative analysis in a cross-country setting.

This study argues that dependency on neoliberal housing market practices seems the underlying reason for the lack of efficient policy answers and the ongoing affordability crisis. From a policymaking perspective, the study suggests that necessary policy measures to resolve the housing affordability crisis may give a specific emphasis on housing rent, housing credit volume and construction costs as the major components of the crisis.

This study develops a novel measure and presents a new conceptual framework by combining quantitative research methods and policymaking in housing affordability. In this respect, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first work to comparatively investigate the determinants of uniquely developed monthly housing affordability measurements.

Drawing on the structural hole-bridging perspective of network theory, this paper aims to examine the adaptation strategies undertaken by housing industry actors following the recent pandemic.

A qualitative case study was adopted as the research methodology for this research. Data collected through online interviews involving 20 participants was used as primary data, while document analysis (both online and printed documents) was used as secondary data. The interviews were guided by the visual vignette method.

This study’s findings indicate that a health-based crisis like COVID-19 triggers housing developers to act outside their comfort zones. They undertake arbitrage and collaborative brokerage strategies to cope with business uncertainties. This study revealed the contextual embedding of the owner-occupier market (consumer market) and the investor market (business market). This study also revealed that firms that aggressively located structural holes and built new relationships in B2C and B2B markets before the COVID-19 pandemic were well-equipped to face turbulent times.

The innovative strategies that housing developers adopt are transferable and applicable to other industries and countries. Therefore, awareness of these strategies is essential for industry practitioners, especially those badly hit by health-based crises.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study that combines relationship management, structural holes, the housing market and their implications for crisis adaptation. This study examined the grossly understudied phenomenon of demand for housing, which is a durable good, during a turbulent time. The findings of this study provide beneficial guidance for firms, buyers and policymakers facing COVID-19 and/or other similar crises.

The proliferation of homelessness and housing precariousness, along with a dramatic growth in food banks, are two signs that while parts of the UK economy may be recovering from the 2008 financial crisis and recession, the same cannot be said for the living conditions of much of the poor and working class population. Much of the media discussion has centered on the ways in which these social ills have been caused by government policy, particularly cuts to social and welfare services introduced under the banner of “austerity.” I argue in this paper, however, that a narrow focus on austerity risks obscuring some of the longer-term structural transformations that have taken place under neoliberal capitalism, namely: (1) financialization and (2) the privatization of social reproduction. Situating these two trends within a longer history of capitalism, I argue, allows us to understand the contemporary housing and food crises as specific (and highly gendered) manifestations of a more fundamental contradiction between capital accumulation and progressive and sustainable forms of social reproduction. Doing so further helps to locate the dramatic proliferation of household debt, which has been supported by both processes, as both cause and consequence of the crisis in social reproduction faced by many UK households.

This paper aims to explore the impact of the joint operation of affordability policies and whether their impact is meaningful relative to the size of the affordability crisis. Its purpose is to construct the features of a comprehensive policy package linked to a measurable outcome: solving the affordability crisis in Auckland. This study investigates the scale and nature of an affordability package that responds to three research and policy questions: What should the rate of annual growth of affordable housing be to solve the affordability crisis? Consequently, how long would it take to solve it? And how much would that policy package cost?

In this paper, the authors argue that the disjoint operation of affordability policies is one of the reasons why their impacts relative to the size of the affordability crisis has been small or negligible. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that affordability is as much about raising households’ incomes as it is about lowering housing prices. This study uses a modelling-based framework to simulate some of the levers that local and central governments have to affect housing prices and affordability: direct intervention on the supply-side and subsidies. Specifically, this simulates retention-and-targeting (RT) programs and subsidies to raise deposits via shared ownership (SO) schemes.

This study finds that solving the affordability crisis would take a decade if the supply of affordable housing increases by at least 45% annually. With the introduction of RT and SO programs, it could still be solved within a decade, where the required growth rate decreases to 35%. However, for growth rates between 5% and 10%, the policy goal is met in approximately 40 years, and the SO program becomes exceedingly expensive.

Housing affordability is one of the hottest policy issues in New Zealand and the developed world. In the past decade, a number of affordability policies have been introduced with limited success due to their lack of interoperability and siloed efforts. Results in this paper should be interpreted as the boundaries of what is feasible and realistic in the realm of affordability policies. Therefore, its contribution relies on investigating the multiple effects if the financial, administrative and political barriers to RT and SO programs could be overcome. Its scope is a blueprint for the design of policies in other cities where unaffordability has become extreme.

This paper investigates the housing affordability crisis from the perspective of vulnerable social groups (VSG) in Turkey and Turkey's megacities, Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, over the period of 2010 and 2019.

The author employ house cost and multiple income variables, involving residual income, to construct socially informative house cost-to-income (HCI) ratios. To measure the country/urban level socio-economic dimensions of the affordability crisis, the author develop 12 main and 76 specific housing affordability criteria.

The author find that housing is not affordable in Turkey and low/unequal distribution of income is a contributive factor for the affordability crisis of VSG. The evidence suggests that housing unaffordability for VSG is deeply rooted in the socio-economic/demographic disparities that eventually result in income and homeownership inequalities.

Constructed HCI ratios provide precise information for the targeted housing affordability policies for the VSG defined by education level, age, location, income distribution, employment status/condition and gender. The author' socially targeted modeling approach briefly suggests that housing affordability policies should focus on low-educated groups, young generations, some elementary occupations, employees in low-income industries, and casual/regular-small firms' employees.

This is the first study that provides nuanced information on housing affordability for Turkey by employing HCI ratios for the targeted VSG. This socially targeted empirical analysis is the first analysis for developing housing markets as well. From the methodological perspective, the author contribute information quality of the housing affordability ratio by using income data of various aggregate-level socio-economic/demographic groups.

This paper aims to offer an extensive empirical case study analysis by investigating housing affordability in Turkey as a whole, and in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir over the period of 2006 and 2017 and its sub-periods.

This paper develops a theoretically informed model to assess affordability using complementary methodologies in quantitative analysis. This study seeks to help outline the nature of the problem in aggregate level and in the cities; it also seeks to offer lessons about how to address measurement and modelling challenges in emergent market contexts by constructing aggregate-/city-level housing cost-to-income (HCI) ratio, adjusted HCI (AHCI) ratio, housing affordability index (HAI) and effective HAI sensitive to multiple calculation methodologies and alternative data set involving income distribution and poverty tranches.

HCI, AHCI, HAI and EHAI models generally suggest the parallel results: housing is not affordable in Turkey and in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir except for the highest income groups. The evidence implies that besides macroeconomic instabilities, distorted interest rates and short average mortgage maturity, poverty and unequal income/wealth distributions are the main reasons of the Turkish housing affordability crisis specifically heightened in metropolitan areas such as in Istanbul.

The evidence provides an insight on housing affordability problems in Turkey. However, small sample size and short observation period create a limit for generalisation of the findings. Further analysis would be required to illustrate how housing affordability changes in different cities of Turkey in a longer period.

By using empirical approaches, this paper helps to understand how serious housing affordability problems of Turkey in aggregate and urban levels. This evidence helps to explain declining ownership ratio in low-income groups and in urban areas. Reliable explanations on existing housing crisis of Turkey also help to develop affordable housing policies.

Declining housing affordability and homeownership ratio may translate as the rising housing inequality and insecurity among Turkish households. Moreover, better affordability values of higher income groups suggest that existing inequality, economic/social segmentation, and hence social tension between high and low income groups, may further increase. In this respect, the authors suggest socially important policies such as reducing income/wealth inequalities and increasing affordable housing supply.

This study offers a detailed empirical case study analysis that can be used as an exemplar of how to overcome data constraints in other evolving housing market contexts. This study sets out an approach overcoming the challenges of measurement. This study also combines existing methodological approaches with the modified variables to provide a more realistic aggregate-/urban-level housing affordability picture. The authors calculated some parts of housing affordability ratio and index series using discretionary income, minimum wage and effective minimum wage to show the variations of different measurement approaches. Some constructed series are also sensitive to income distribution and poverty thresholds. Collectively, this empirical approach, developed by using emerging market data, provides a contribution to the literature.

The precise relationships between neoliberalization, financialization, and rising risk are still being debated in the literature. This paper examines, and challenges, the Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) developed by Hyman Minsky and his adherents. In this perspective, the level of financial risk builds over time as participants orient their behavior in relation to assessments of past levels of risk performance, leading them to overly optimistic valuation estimates and increasingly risky behavior with each subsequent cycle. However, there are problems with this approach, and many questions remain, including how participants modify their exposure to risk over time, how risk is scaled, and who benefits from changes in exposure to risk. This paper examines such questions and proposes an alternate perspective on financial instability and risk, in light of the history of risk management within Canada’s housing finance sector. The rise of financialization in Canada has been accompanied by shifts in the sectoral and scalar locus of risk within the housing sector, from the federal state, to lower levels of government, third-sector organizations, and finally, private households. In each case, the transfer of risk has occurred as participants in each stage sought to reduce their own risk exposure in light of realistic and even pessimistic (not optimistic) expectations deriving from past exposure, contradicting basic assumptions of Minsky’s FIH. This is the process that has driven the neoliberalization of housing finance in Canada, characterized by the socialization of lender risk while households increasingly take on the financial and social risks relating to shelter.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of the 2008 global financial crisis on housing market dynamics in an emerging economy like India using quarterly data (Q4 2008–2009 to Q1 2018–2019). The study explores the extent of linkages between housing prices, monetary policy and financial stability by explaining the nature of the shocks to the housing sector and the degree of impact of those shocks; the possibility of adverse feedback loop which is beyond the natural levels; and the usefulness of explicit and direct role of monetary policy for the housing market stability, which was the loudest demand immediately after the crisis.

The paper follows a three-step methodology: data transformations, a variable selection process “general-to-specific modelling” with the help of OxMetrics 6 Package, and vector autoregressive modelling with the help of EViews 10. F-test was used to describe the short-term relationships between the variables. Impulse response and variance decomposition were used to explain the type of relationship (negative or positive) and the period of the relationships, respectively.

The study finds that the housing sector is sensitive to the monetary policy shocks, whereas the contribution of the housing market shocks to the fluctuations in other market variables is not substantial, though not negligible. As far as the nature of the shocks is concerned, the observed dynamics in the real house prices are diverging from their fundamental levels. The housing market shocks are more or less static; it rules out the chances for a self-reinforcing feedback loop with the existing setup.

The study concludes that the observed dynamics in the real house prices are diverging from their fundamental levels. Given the limitation, the researchers could extend this study by decomposing the part of the risk to the sector contributed by the other drivers, which may be inherent imperfections in housing markets, weak and unreliable wealth effect, and the presence of behavioural biases.

The present study finds countercyclical measures to be more useful for this sector as compared to the forward-looking monetary policy reforms in this sector. The central bank in India should continue to refrain from responding directly to the housing sector fluctuations. Investors can enjoy investing in the housing sector without any fear of the crisis as of now. The effect of speculation is small but not negligible, which enjoins the investors and the policy-makers to remain watchful. Interest rate, money supply and inflation lead (Granger-cause) the housing prices. This information is relevant for spending and investment decisions.

The study feels that banks should avoid using monetary policy to balance the house prices. This will be beneficial both for the economy and the society, as any change in monetary policy to especially curb out surging housing prices may adversely affect the output, and finally, may lead to the deflation. The fear of deflation may cause devastating economic, financial and social effects.

The study contributes to the literature by shedding some new insights about the interrelationship between macroeconomic variables, housing prices and financial stability in the aftermath of the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Such types of studies are absent from emerging markets, particularly from India.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of housing price on mortgage debt accumulation while considering the structural break effects associated with the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

To determine the existence of a long run relationship among the variables, this study used a Johansen cointegration test. The long run model was then estimated using the fully modified ordinary least square method and reported for both the model with and without a structural break associated with the GFC.

The findings demonstrate a moderate positive relationship between housing price and mortgage debt, with the impact of the GFC is positive but insignificant. The household’s lack of responsiveness to the GFC may be attributed to their optimistic expectations and confidence in the Malaysian housing market.

Findings of this study provide some guidance to policymakers and the banking sector in predicting household borrowing behavior during future economic crises.

The increase in housing prices and mortgage debt after the GFC has been a concern for many countries, including Malaysia. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the relationship between housing prices and mortgage debt in Malaysia and sheds light on the impact of the GFC on household borrowing behavior. The study’s contributions include providing new evidence to the underexplored topic, enhancing the robustness and reliability of the empirical results and providing insights into the importance of testing for structural breaks in time series analysis.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the conventional mortgage system is not appropriate for household finance because it encourages equity extraction and excessive leverage during housing boom and leads to negative equity during a housing bust, a situation that translates into mortgage defaults and foreclosures. Home financing could alternatively be structured as a diminishing partnership preventing the homeowner from ever having negative equity.

Using Johansen’s cointegration test, the authors provide evidence of a long-run relationship between the delinquency rates, volume of refinancing and the change in house price index (HPI) during the 1994–2019 period. To unravel the short run dynamics between these variables, the authors used a Granger causality test that concludes that the volume of refinancing and the change in the HPI Granger cause default rates.

The authors provide evidence that under the current conventional mortgage system, excessive refinancing opportunities and equity extraction that are the main factors determining delinquency rates leading to a non-sustainable homeownership.

If mortgages were such that they do not incentivize defaults and foreclosures during a housing downturn, the recovery of the housing market always leads to capital gains. Therefore, disincentivizing refinancing and equity extraction would lead to a more sustainable homeownership.

Households would be encouraged to pursue sustainable homeownership through a partnership-based model with long-term wealth accumulation for themselves and their heirs rather than short-term home ownership through the conventional mortgage system, leading to negative equity and defaults when the housing market slumps.

Policymakers ought to rethink the mortgage design by promoting partnership-based finance to protect the equity a household accumulates over a lifetime and thereby enhancing stable and sustainable homeownership.