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Shared equity homeownership is a form of subsidised, resale-restricted housing through which lower-income households can sustain their affordability. This paper aims to distinguish two types of affordability within shared equity homeownership: “entry affordability” indicates how affordable subsidised housing is when a household first becomes a subsidised owner; while “exit affordability” means how affordable private housing is after a household has enjoyed subsidised homeownership for a period of time.

Using price-to-income ratios, this study compares the entry and exit affordability of shared equity homeownership programs in Australia, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Norway, the UK and the USA. Based on these international comparisons, this study generalises two distinct types of shared equity homeownership models, namely, the models of “share-to-buy” and “share forever”. A new model, “follow-as-you-go”, is further suggested to increase the elasticity of potential affordable housing supply by providing incentives for existing subsidised homeowners to move.

A key finding of this study is that while shared equity homeownership programs can improve entry affordability, homeowners’ exit affordability is weak when subsidised homeowners have to share their capital gain with the government. While many housing policy discussions around the world that support shared equity homeownership focus only on the improvement of entry affordability, these discussions usually ignore the importance of exit affordability. This study attempts to fill the void in the understanding of these two types of affordability.

Shared equity homeownership policy is not only about offering low-income households but also an affordable housing option. It is also about facilitating well-off subsidised homeowners to move up the housing ladder so that the affordable housing option can be freed up for others in need. In a word, it is not only entry affordability but also exit affordability that matters.

This paper aims to examine the effect of housing wealth on household consumption when there are resale and refinancing constraints that prevent housing assets from being cashed out.

Based on Household Expenditure Survey data in Hong Kong from 1999 to 2010, regression analysis is applied to compare the housing wealth effects of private and subsidized homeowners. Propensity score matching is adopted to ensure that the two groups of homeowners share similar household income. Further regression analysis is conducted to examine private homeowners’ consumption when their recourse mortgages are in negative equity.

Subsidized homeowners, who are not allowed to resell their units before sharing their capital gain with the government, experienced an insignificant housing wealth effect. While private homeowners experienced a significant housing wealth effect, the effect was weakened in the presence of a resale constraint induced by negative equity. The results remain robust after the application of more rigorous sample selection through propensity score matching.

The analyses are subject to two potential data limitations. One is a relatively small sample size. The other is that data on financial assets and mortgages are unavailable and have to be indirectly controlled through household characteristics. Nevertheless, our estimated marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth is 0.03 of the annual household consumption for private homeowners, which is within the range of estimates reported in previous literature.

This study shows that the housing wealth effect enjoyed in the private sector does not necessarily apply to the subsidized sector where resale and refinancing constraints exist. This is not to suggest that the constraints be removed. Rather, policymakers should be aware of the tradeoff: while the constraints ensure that government subsidies are used to assist home ownership, not capital gain, they also bring about consumption inequality in a society, especially in a booming housing market.

Our findings extend the literature on the housing wealth effect, which has been exclusively focusing on private homeowners, to subsidized homeowners. This study also adds to the literature on housing welfare by highlighting that the resale constraints of subsidized housing can weaken the housing wealth effect.

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 aims to propose a model for democratization of Islamic home financing to tackle the issue of sustainability of homeownership affordability.

A conceptual framework and fractional equity model (FEM) are developed to incorporate big data analytics, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology in an ecosystem for affordability and sustainability of homeownership via the proposed financing model. In addition, the FEM adopts the simulation approach to show its validity in terms of liquidity when compared with traditional home financing. In this regard, this paper is focused on developing and demonstrating the feasibility of a new financing model, rather than testing specific hypotheses or relationships. This is to propose the democratization model for Islamic Home Financing that will not benefit the prospective home buyers without compromising the profitability of the financial institutions.

The findings indicate that the proposed end-to-end solution within the financing ecosystem can lead to more efficient matching market between the buyers and sellers of houses, reduced transaction costs, greater transparency and enhanced efficiency which in the end could lead to lower costs of owning homes and sustained financial resilience among house owners. The findings indicate that the FEM model is able to increase homeownership with more elements of liquidity, marketability and sustainability for homebuyers.

This research highlights the potential of big data and blockchain technology in democratizing Islamic home financing and evidence that the transfer of ownership is possible through tokenization. However, this will require a mature financing environment to adapt the technology for practical application.

The model proposes a solution to propagate shared prosperity among stakeholders such as the house buyers/owners, sellers, investors as well the government agencies. The proposed FEM model provides alternative home financing that is more marketable, flexible and sustainable for households/buyers and financiers.

It is hoped that with the proposed financing ecosystem to promote affordability and sustainability of homeownership via big data analytics, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology can lead to greater financial resilience for homeowners which can then be translated to enhanced well-being, increased productivity and can further promote economic growth.

This research is a concept paper based on academic research and industry collaboration with a technology provider.

This paper aims to assess financial interoperability implications associated with first-time buyers (FTB) in housing development and the role of the community land trust shared equity housing model (CLT SEHM).

The interoperability optimisation process adopted by this study involved triangulated findings from the literature, semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys. The text analysis of interview responses was actualised with Nvivo 9.0. This process informed the validation of themes through a questionnaire survey (purposive sampling), of which findings were subsequently analysed with statistical methods including binary logistic regression to validate interoperability rational and implications.

The study identified positive financial interoperability outcomes for a successful synergy between the CLT SEHM and FTBs. From the analysis, there were sustainable results for average income multiple and property transfer/resale value for the CLT SEHM compared to conventional models. However, for the most at risk FTB groups, recommendations included increased concessions for CLT SEHM developments to incentivise bespoke rent purchase hybrid schemes.

This research provided a good starting point for achieving an improved level of efficiency necessary for the introduction of emerging/renewed alternative housing models into mainstream operational capabilities in housing and local development policies.

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.

The study analyzes the relationship between homeownership and financial investment of households in the context of emerging markets like India. It also examines how homeownership affects the portfolio decisions of Indian households.

Using the nationally representative All-India Debt and Investment Survey of 2019 and employing an instrumental variable approach, the authors analyze the relationship between homeownership and the share of financial assets held by Indian households. The study also employs several sensitivity checks, including alternate estimation techniques and alternative definitions of the housing variables, and accounts for additional factors to ensure that the authors are able to capture the effect of homeownership on the outcome variable.

The analysis suggests homeownership crowds out financial investment in India due to high repair and maintenance costs. The negative effect is mainly observed in urban households. Further, the findings imply that homeownership leads households to reallocate their asset portfolio. Homeowners have a lower share in liquid short term deposits, indicating the high liquidity risk of their portfolios. On the other hand, homeownership increases the share of long term retirement funds along with no effect on risky asset share. The authors observe that the crowding out effect is more striking for younger households and poorer households with low income, and the effect is lower for indebted households.

The findings underscore the need for financial awareness programs so that housing does not crowd out liquid investments of households. Additionally, the results highlight that policies should first focus on young and poor households as the negative effect is more prominent for these groups. Finally, there is scope for policies to support repair and maintenance costs incurred by vulnerable households to reduce the negative effect of housing on liquid financial investments.

This paper is among the few studies that provide insights into how homeownership relates to financial investment and portfolio decisions in the context of an emerging economy. Furthermore, the heterogeneous effects based on poor economic status and age underscore the need for complementary policies.

This paper links the literatures on the life-cycle hypothesis, homeownership, home equity and pensions. Empirically, the focus is on the EU and USA. The paper aims to explore the extent that seniors extract their home equity and discuss the financial instruments available for equity extraction.

The study uses data from the EU and USA to determine homeownership rates, house values and mortgage debt. With these values, the amount of seniors’ home equity is measured for each country. The usage of home equity extraction methods is reported and factors limiting their use are identified.

Seniors’ home equity is a substantial share of their total wealth. Estimates for 2013 are that their home equity equals about €5tn in the USA and over €8tn in large EU countries. The authors find that only a small share of seniors extracts their home equity. While there are supply side constraints in many countries, the evidence suggests that the cause of low extraction rates is the lack of demand. Various reasons for the lack of demand are discussed.

The increasing share of seniors in most countries’ population suggests that there will be increasing pressure on public pension systems. One among many options to address this issue is to impose a wealth test for eligibility, where wealth includes home equity. This study suggests that although home equity is substantial for many seniors, they are reluctant to access the funds.

The paper highlights the importance of home equity in the EU and USA and the factors that affect the primary methods of extraction.

The past century and a quarter can be divided into three successive eras for homeownership policy characterization. For the first four decades, the federal government pursued a laissez-faire policy that left housing issues to the individual states and private markets. For the next six decades, the federal government implemented a policy created as part of the Roosevelt New Deal program. Finally, the Clinton administration discarded the New Deal policy in favor of a more aggressive policy that has continued to the present day. The purpose of this study is to compare the performance of the respective policies.

The study introduces two metrics. The first metric, based on government homeownership rate data, enables comparison of the laissez-faire and New Deal policies. The second metric, based on financial frictions in the mortgage market, enables comparison of the New Deal and Clinton policies.

Analysis based on the first metric suggests the New Deal policy was successful in meeting its macroeconomic objectives and was more effective overall than the laissez-faire policy. Analysis based on the second metric suggests the New Deal policy was also more successful in both respects than the Clinton policy.

The findings suggest that the Clinton homeownership policy was the primary driver behind the recent US housing crisis and that vulnerability in the secondary mortgage market created by the Clinton policy represents systemic housing market risk.

The study introduces simple analytical tools to address problems related to systemic risk in the US housing and housing finance markets due to homeownership policy.

As financial markets move toward increased globalization, it becomes worth considering whether inherent differences in financial markets across different countries will diminish. For two countries more similar than different in terms of geography, location, government and culture, Canada and the USA remain strikingly different in terms of housing finance. Public policy objectives toward housing followed quite different paths over the past 70 years and fundamental differences in banking practices have led to considerably different outcomes in terms of mortgage finance instruments in the two countries. Examines some of the differences in policy and in competitive practices between Canada and the USA in an attempt to illuminate why differences in rates and terms across the two countries still exist. While a part of the difference remains due to legal constraints concerning the finance of the domestic housing sector, focuses on the economics and public policy choices that have led to the observed differences rather than on an analysis of the legal structure.