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While private takings are often used for land development, they also trigger intensive debates, such as in the Kelo case. The most-common supporting argument is that private development contributes a wide variety of benefits to the locality. In contrast, a counter-argument exists that inadequate public oversight, together with profit-maximization motives, leads to overreliance on takings by private entities. Utilizing a dataset of 259 taking projects for large industrial complexes in Korea, we show that private takings are more likely to result in irregularities such as cancellation than public takings. This paper is expected to provide beneficial insights for governments in various countries that intend to use private takings to rapidly promote economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mortgage holder whose property is worth less than the repayment value of the mortgage may decide to strategically default, i.e., renege on the cash flow liability of the mortgage loan and surrender the property to the mortgage issuer. In other circumstances a mortgage holder may default due to personal income decline which makes payment infeasible (unaffordability default) or for a combination of strategic and affordability causes (dual-trigger default). This paper utilizes a database of troubled Irish mortgages to model the default decisions of Irish mortgage holders. We include both affordability-related and strategic-related explanatory variables. We find that both types of explanatory variables play a role in the explosive growth in Irish mortgage default after the Irish banking crisis and temporary legal prohibition of property repossession. We find that a dual-trigger model of default best fits the Irish data. Given the unusual features of the Irish market, our findings both complement and strengthen existing empirical findings from other national mortgage markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of workmanship and construction quality of new housing on their sale price and capital growth. To measure construction quality, we take advantage of a unique situation in Singapore where newly completed residential projects are assessed independently on their workmanship under the Construction Quality Assessment System (CONQUAS). Examining 100,593 sale transactions of apartment units in 205 residential developments completed between 1998 and 2010, we find strong evidence that their selling price and appreciation rate are related significantly to construction quality of the new homes. Moreover, the “quality” premium is present in both the primary and secondary markets. The empirical evidence suggests that apartments that are well constructed not only command a higher price for developers, but they also generate higher capital gains for homeowners and investors in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper investigates the long run historic development of the Amsterdam rental housing market (1550–1850). Using rent data on a large cross section of residential properties in Amsterdam we are able to develop an annual constant-quality rent index for the entire time period. Whereas nominal rents nearly tripled over the considered sample period, average Amsterdam house rents, in real terms, had approximately the same level in 1850 as they exhibited in 1550. Otherwise stated, nominal rents and goods prices rose at the same pace. Over these 301years, the real index moves between a minimum level of 45.6 and a maximum of 162.4. As concerns the relation between the housing market and the real economy, we find empirical evidence that fluctuations in rents and fluctuations in proxies of business cycle activity comove, both in nominal and in real terms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]