Search

Subsidised housing often creates a segmented housing market, with some home owners falling into a gap between the subsidised and non-subsidised types. This gap particularly affects middle-income buyers, whose income may be too high to qualify for subsidy but too low to buy a non-subsidised house. Western Europe has policies and affordable products to bridge this gap. In this paper, based on a literature review and 15 interviews with South African policymakers and representatives from the financial sector, we assess whether the Western European products have potential in South Africa. We find some obstacles-differences in macro-economic context, the fact that South Africa seems to be locked into a capital subsidy policy pathway, the lack of a suitable regulatory framework and institutional problems at the local level-but also some potential in the form of alternative tenures and innovative housing finance in the areas of mineworker housing, inner city housing and social housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 'normal' housing market, one would expect that rising house prices go together with low vacancy rates and vice versa. However, in Spain, this has not been the case. Until very recently, Spain was characterised by strongly rising house prices as well as by a high rate of vacant dwellings. This is the Spanish paradox. This exploratory paper attempts to explain this paradox from a welfare regime perspective. The Spanish welfare and housing system has a number of specific characteristics, such as a political ideology and culture of homeownership, a history of strong rural to urban migration, a large role for the family, and a relatively strict rent regulation and tenant protection. The paper will show that all these characteristics contribute to the Spanish paradox. The paper will also indicate how the Spanish paradox relates to the speculative bubble in the Spanish property sector that has recently burst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]