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We show large flows of workers into the real estate agent (REA) occupation during the early 2000s from virtually all parts of the skill, wage, and education spectrums. We find those entering REA in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) with house price bubbles end up in occupations paying significantly less in the long-run as compared to similar REA entrants in non-bubble areas. Even in 2017, when house prices and employment return to their pre-crisis levels, REA entrants in Bubble MSAs are in occupations earning about 6% less. These results point to lasting effects of labor allocation decisions in response to distorted price signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The real estate market is highly intermediated, with 90% of buyers and sellers hiring an agent. However, low barriers to entry and fixed commission rates result in large market share for inexperienced intermediaries. Using micro-level data on 8.5 million listings and a novel research design, we show that house listings by inexperienced agents have a lower probability of selling, and this effect is strongest during the housing bust. We estimate that 3.7% more listings would have been sold in a flexible commission equilibrium. Eighty percent of this improvement comes from competition and the remainder from commission variation across experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adverse market events can affect credit supply not only by hurting financial fundamentals but also by changing the risk-taking behaviors of individual decision-makers. We provide micro-level evidence of this individual decision-making channel in the U.S. mortgage market. We find that mortgage application rejection rates are more sensitive to foreclosure intensity when loan officers are more exposed to foreclosure news, despite the same housing market and bank fundamentals. Loans originated from the affected branches have lower ex post default rates, consistent with higher lending standards being applied. In the aggregate, this effect results in tighter credit supply during housing market downturns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I identify the effect of financial constraints on product prices using granular data on home-builder housing developments from the 2006–2009 housing crisis. Builders who experience losses in one area subsequently sell homes in unaffected areas at a discount to raise cash quickly. When builders cut prices, they sell homes faster and builders cut prices more in areas in which price cuts produce larger declines in time-to-sale. Financially constrained firms are more likely to cut prices of homes in healthy areas following losses elsewhere. Firms cut prices following losses in other projects only during the crisis, not during the boom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the real effects of foreign real estate capital inflows. Using transaction-level data, we document (i) a "China shock" in the U.S. housing market characterized by surging foreign Chinese housing purchases after 2008, and (ii) "home bias" in these purchases, as they concentrate in neighborhoods historically populated by ethnic Chinese. Exploiting their temporal and spatial variation, we find that these capital inflows raise local employment, with the effect transmitted through a housing net worth channel. However, they displace local lower-income residents. Our results show that real estate capital inflows can both stimulate the real economy and induce gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Producing less than 20,000 units on average annually in California, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) cannot meet the outsized demand for subsidized housing alone . This report examines alternatives to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit in the State of California, with particular emphasis on the Los Angeles market. This report analyzes project feasibility in today’s conditions, as well as an analysis of the financial impact that certain international policies could have on affordable housing development at the project level. The analyses aim to illustrate possible project models as additional options beyond LIHTC, and demonstrate the value of including higher income projects within an affordable housing system on being able to leverage more debt, equity and other financial resources and thereby produce more affordable housing at all levels.

Homeowners who originally bought when marketwide price levels were high (low) fetch high (low) sales prices and rents, even decades later. We study the propagation of reference-dependence to neighboring listings. The "spillover" reference point effect is about one-half as large as the "own" reference point effect. Neither house quality nor location appears capable of explaining the result. Using a simple model to provide empirical predictions, we find support for a competition-based mechanism. We quantify the aggregate effect of own and spillover reference point effects on aggregate prices and/or rents at the ZIP code level. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Chinese government has gradually paid attention to the development of the rental housing market and began to issue a large number of relevant policies by the central and local governments in 2016. In view of the lack of systematic evaluation of rental housing market policy in China, this study constructed an interdependent multi-layer network of 'policy objective-policy instrument-issuing department-stakeholder' from the perspective of text measurement, and used network indexes to measure the global features of the four-dimensional sub-policy network and the differential characteristics of the network evolution process, the results are as follows: (i) The four policy instruments in the network of policy instruments, namely, instruction, supply leading, management system and management system reform, are leaders in the network. (ii) The absolute central node in the policy objective network is to increase the effective supply of rental housing. (iii) The central nodes in the issuing department network are housing development department and the land department. (iv) Market subject and public are the central clusters in the stakeholder network. (v) The network nodes of stakeholder policy instruments have the strongest correlation, and there are three clusters with obvious spatial distance segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractHouse hunting in the Malaysian housing market is challenging for Indian Malaysian tenants, who are subject to various forms of racism. Harmful stereotypes painting Indians as dirty and dangerous have influenced landlords, mostly Chinese, to reject applications based on biased racial assumptions. Despite the relevance, little scholarship has examined how rental racism has affected the Indian community in Malaysia. This article examines the workings of a culturally specific configuration of racism, focusing on Indian Malaysians’ experiences at the juncture of race, class, and colorism. Through interviews with landlords and affected tenants, we see the multifaceted nature of housing discrimination in the Klang Valley, from blatant expressions of Indians as dangerous to repugnance from neighbors at the smell of curry. In the broader context, this article posits that neighborhoods represent a microcosm of Malaysian society, where race determines one’s access to spaces and the treatment one receives from other Malaysians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst growing concerns about climate risks to the U.S. housing markets, strategies to physically retrofit homes are gaining attention—including within debates over how to resolve intersecting crises of housing re/insurability and affordability in highly exposed sites like Florida. We consider an important but under-studied example of this "climate-proofing" strategy unfolding today: Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) finance. While PACE has historically financed decarbonization retrofits, it is increasingly being deployed to facilitate hurricane risk reduction in Florida. In this paper, we introduce PACE: its basic characteristics, evolving uses, and controversies. Exploring the Florida case, we examine two deeper but as yet under-examined financial tensions: PACE's intersections with other forms of property-linked finance (and potential systemic breakdowns) and rising affordability breakpoints as homeowners encounter its new debt amidst other growing and intersecting climate/climate response costs. These issues call for more transformative imaginaries of urban retrofitting and its resourcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenges in meeting housing demand in African cities have manifested in increased attention to encouraging and adopting incremental housing approach to address the persistent housing deficits with recourse to development control measures. Relatedly, there have been calls to recognize and understand how attitudes of incremental builders or homeowners conform to development control measures from an African perspective. Using Kumasi as a case study, this paper inquires: in what ways can the attitudes of homeowners be used to address housing challenges via incrementalism and how can perceptions inform development control toward sustainability of cities? The findings show that despite the existence of various development control measures to promote orderly human settlement development, incremental housing development does not conform to such regulations due to low knowledge of builders on existing measures, avoidance of incurring additional costs, unnecessary formality and bureaucratic nature of permit acquisition process, and failure of city authorities to strictly enforce regulations. The study concludes that perception and awareness on development control regulations influence attitudes toward compliance. Hence, the need to sensitize and integrate attitudes and knowledge of homeowners into urban planning efforts to safeguard the urban landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban studies scholars have explored the relationship between anti-Black residential preferences and segregation for nearly 50 years in the United States. The classical conception was that Black-white segregation was created and reinforced by a mix of anti-Black preference, discrimination, and poverty. Recently, scholars have been puzzled about why open anti-Blackness has diminished, but segregation has not. The compelling explanations for this turn are useful, but of limited applicability for cities outside of the United States in the Global North. In places such as Paris, London, and Toronto, substantial Black populations are of relatively recent origin, so some of the historical and social drivers of American segregation do not exist in the same form there, even if anti-Blackness does. This paper explores anti-Black residential preferences in Toronto using a 2,314-person online panel. I argue that the racial capitalism paradigm provides a more flexible and robust way to interpret the consequences of anti-Black preferences than segregation metrics. Housing markets are a primary mechanism for materializing racism. At times, that takes the form of segregation, but at other times it assumes different, but equally material, forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current land pressures in the world cities of the global North are encouraging a move towards denser urban living and the development of smaller homes than has been the case for many decades. While this appears environmentally beneficial when compared with the alternative of suburban sprawl, it comes at a cost: the number of extremely small homes appears to be increasing particularly rapidly, with less communal and public space available to those living in compact homes which offer little room for socialising, storing possessions or working from home. Drawing specifically on the experience of England and Wales, with a focus on the overheated property market in London, this commentary sets out an international agenda for the study of small homes, noting the growing evidence of the negative impact of dense urban living on mental and physical health, home-working and familial and intimate relations, as well as its failure to solve the crisis of affordability. The article suggests that rather than being a reasoned response to the housing and environmental crises, the phenomenon of 'shrinking homes' indicates the growing role of finance in the development of cities, suggestive of the way that developers are extracting maximum value from restricted urban sites in an era of planning deregulation. In conclusion, the commentary argues that urban scholarship needs to compile more evidence of space inequality in cities, pushing for policies designed to enforce minimal space standards while reducing the ability of the wealthy to construct very large homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an approach to understanding high-density living in precarious housing. Developing a conception of housing density based on 'density expressions' and 'density modalities', we argue for a focus on how domestic density is experienced and intervened in by residents and other groups. This approach builds in existing work in Housing Studies and Urban Studies on domestic overcrowding by demonstrating the value of attending to its sensorial experiences, and practices that seek to alleviate those experiences. Drawing on fieldwork in Hong Kong, one of the densest and more unequal housing markets in the world, we identify 'infiltration' as a key form of density expression. We go on explore two density modalities through which residents and other groups, including civil society organisations and the state, practice modest forms of intervention in the struggles of precarious housing: 'improvisation' and 'transition'. We conclude by considering the implications both on housing in Hong Kong and for future research on precarious housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Segregation is a relatively recent issue in larger Finnish cities. The existence of segregation contradicts the Nordic welfare model, and segregation has been raised to the national policy level in Finland to combat a slowly widening gap between social groups on a spatial level. Local municipalities are central actors in urban policies. Therefore, we look at segregation from a local policy perspective. Our results confirm that segregation has not been seen as a burning issue in Finland on a local level, and recognition depends on the size of the city. Where segregation is acknowledged, it is often named a problem in city strategies but does not translate into anti-segregation policies locally. In mid-size cities, 'spatial deprivation' rather than segregation is acknowledged, rendering systematic interventions aimed at segregation even more difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We implement correspondence testing to detect and assess the extent of discrimination against people with disabilities in the French rental housing market. By sending 1,750 emails in a matched-pair procedure, we provide evidence of significant and extensive discrimination against blind people with a guide dog, individuals with mental disabilities, and individuals with motor impairments in the process of rented housing allocation. However, the primary cause of discrimination against blind individuals appears to stem from the presence of the guide dog, rather than the disability itself. Our results are also consistent with the presence of statistical discrimination (particularly based on financial means). We find that absolute discrimination against disabled applicants increases in accordance with the level of rent, while real estate agents discriminate significantly less against disabled applicants than private landlords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing and rental market has an important economic place in the economy of countries. Housing prices are generally determined by the characteristics such as area of the house, the number of rooms, the floor it is located on, etc. However, in addition to these characteristics of the house itself, the location of the house also has a significant impact on the marketing evaluation of the house. In this respect, it is important to be able to evaluate the housing location according to objective criteria in order to prevent subjective price speculations. In this study, evaluation of the location of a real estate is considered as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. From this location, the ease of transportation to other points of the city by public transportation, as well as the ease of transportation to important points such as metro stations, hospitals, shopping malls and urban green areas, is taken into consideration. In this context, the concept of a public transport network (PTN) distance has been introduced and an index called the Location Valuation Index (LVI) has been proposed. The advantage of the proposed LVI method over other MCDM methods is that information about all alternatives is needed to create a preference ranking in other MCDM methods. In the LVI method, an index that can be calculated directly, independently of other alternatives, is proposed. The newly proposed method has been shown to give consistent results by comparing it with the TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method, which is widely used in the literature. The proposed model was run on the public transportation network data of the city of Izmir, the third largest metropolitan city of Turkey, and the LVI heatmap of the city was created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first study to compare the hedonic wage and discrete choice models in the context of real job market choices. The hedonic wage method is the most widely adopted approach in estimating the value of marginal changes in mortality risks (or value of a statistical life, VSL). Alternatively, the discrete choice model offers a framework for valuing non-market goods, often used in choice experiments involving hypothetical job selection scenarios. This study employs both the hedonic wage and discrete choice models, using real market data from Taiwan's Panel Survey of Family Dynamics (PSFD 2016-2018), to examine workers' industry choices and infer their willingness to pay for job safety. By comparing the estimation results from the discrete choice model and the hedonic wage model, this study finds that the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for risk reduction estimated from discrete choice models is unreasonably large and therefore prefers the hedonic wage model in estimating the value of job safety. The findings of this study contribute to the literature comparing the hedonic model and the discrete choice model in evaluating environmental goods, which are mainly conducted using housing market data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how the expansion of segregated neighborhoods eroded black wealth in prewar American cities. Using a novel sample of matched addresses, we find that over a single decade rental prices soared by roughly 50% on city blocks that transitioned from all white to majority black. Meanwhile, pioneering black families paid a 28% premium to buy a home on a majority white block, after which their homes lost 10% of their value. These findings strongly suggest that segregated housing markets cost black families much of the gains associated with moving north during the Great Migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the interacted panel VAR method to analyse how institutional factors related to the structure of the housing market explain cross‐country heterogeneity in responses to macroeconomic shocks. While the previous literature focused on the stabilizing role of the mortgage market, we argue that housing tenure structure also plays an important role. In the baseline, we use data for nine OECD members to investigate how the size and regulations of the rental market affect the response of the housing market to interest rate shocks. As a reference, we also conduct a similar analysis with the mortgage market structure as the institutional factor. We find that both the rental market size and maximum loan‐to‐value ratios are important in explaining heterogeneity of housing market responses to macroeconomic shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the optimal mortgage level and examines the impact of urbanization on the risk of excessive mortgage loan in China's housing markets. We propose a new model to theoretically derive and measure both the optimal mortgage level and the degree of urbanization across different regions of China. The paper tests two hypotheses: first, whether urbanization directly increases the risk of excess mortgages, and second, whether urbanization indirectly contributes to this risk through its effect on housing prices. Using a fixed-effects model for panel data analysis, the generalized method of moments (GMM), and monthly data from 25 regional provinces in China spanning from 2007 to 2019, our results provide strong evidence in support of these hypotheses. The impact of urbanization varies across regions, suggesting that distinct policy interventions may be needed for different regional housing markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses panel data for the 50 states of the U.S. plus the District of Columbia from 1998 to 2018 to examine pricing effects of climate change on housing and insurance markets. We apply the mean group estimator and separate short-run from long-run impacts. The results indicate long-run relationships between the housing/insurance market and climate change, although no significant impacts of climate change on these markets appear in the long-run. In the short-run, we find significant negative impacts of fire occurrences on housing prices and mortgage rates, and significant positive impacts of flooding on insurance markets. Further analysis of states exposed to severe climate risks indicates no short- or long-run impacts of climate change. Thus, while realtors and insurance providers may price some climate-risks into mortgage and insurance in the short-run, they do not in the long-run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the lives of four people living in northern England: a refugee, a disabled person, a student and a house hunter. It examines the problems they face, including hostility, poverty, debt, a broken housing market and the wider social trends—particularly inequality—underlying them. It examines which of these issues are currently being addressed by politicians and whether, without a shift in the terms of debate, policies that are adequate to deal with them can be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores home modification and personalization as mechanisms to promote aging in place and independence for older adults in Jordan. Personalization and home modification are important because they help older people age in place and promote independence. Thus, this study investigated elderly adaptability and housing alteration methods in Jordan. As the first study in Jordan, this research examined the meaning of aging and cultural variations in aging in place. The study tested the following hypotheses for different governorates, all showing significant effects: (I) overall, the sense of control is different in different locations, (II) space personalization is different in different locations, (III) home modification is associated with location, (IV) the association between space personalization and overall sense of control varies across locations, and (V) home modification is associated with the overall sense of control differently in different locations. Additionally, the study highlights the importance of regulated and well-organized home care services to ensure seniors can receive the necessary care while remaining in their families and communities. This research offers valuable insights into the cultural variations surrounding visions of aging in place and emphasizes the need for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) changed tax policy in two important aspects. It limited state and local tax deductions (SALT) to $10,000 and lowered marginal tax rates in most income brackets. In this analysis, I estimate house price time series models for 20 U.S. cities using Case-Shiller data and test for series breaks when TCJA was adopted and implemented. The purpose is to test whether there is a unit root with breakpoints in each series. If so, the TCJA shock was permanent, not transitory, and the time series process is not mean reverting. Results reveal significant breaks in 12 of the 20 city indices. Additionally, there are significant breakpoints in 22 of the 48 tests across city price tiers (16 cities with three house price tiers each). The modal break date is the month of TCJA legislation passage with another 13 significant breakpoints within six months of TCJA adoption. Results indicate that TCJA was associated with an initial negative effect on house prices in many housing markets and price tiers. Importantly, the presence of unit root processes indicates that house price dynamics are more variable subsequently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergenerational financial assistance with home ownership has attracted increasing scholarly interest in recent years. Existing research has focussed primarily on its impact on inequality, housing market outcomes and notions of meritocracy, as well as the relational dynamics through which it is negotiated. The topic of financial elder abuse has, however, remained an area of relative silence in this literature despite concerns raised by advocacy groups. In this article, we consider how intergenerational financial assistance may facilitate attitudes and behaviours that can result in financial elder abuse. To do so, we draw on an analysis of the Banking Code of Practice and the presumption of advancement, each of which shapes the way intergenerational financial assistance with home ownership unfolds in Australia. We then consider how such arrangements play out in practice through analysis of interviews conducted with donors and recipients of assistance of this type. We ultimately argue that in the context of intergenerational financial assistance with home ownership, the potential for financial elder abuse should be considered not just as an individual or family issue rooted in relationships, but as the outcome of ageist social attitudes and structural problems in the asset economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The endowment effect is one of the key behavioral biases causing friction in the housing market. It results in sellers' offer prices being inflated relative to buyers' bid prices. Although this effect has been confirmed in many studies, little is known about how it can be reduced or eliminated. Therefore, this article assesses the impact of behavioral interventions on the intensity of the endowment effect using the Polish housing market as a case study. The research was based on a lab-in-the-field experiment, in which a hypothetical transaction in the secondary sales housing market was simulated and the recruited respondents were randomly divided into sellers and buyers. The endowment effect was measured by the gap between the average value of minimum prices for which sellers would be willing to sell a dwelling (WTA) and the average value of maximum prices that buyers would be willing to pay to acquire that dwelling (WTP). The results show that the endowment effect significantly decreases but does not disappear after the application of behavioral interventions. The latter consists of highlighting relevant information about the market price of a property and visualizing it graphically. Specifically, before the intervention, the WTA-WTP gap was 7.01%, and after 2.48%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The composition of the housing market is shaped by the social dimensions of buyer heterogeneity, prompting households to prioritize housing development to fulfill their needs efficiently. Both quantitative and qualitative dimensions of housing heterogeneity in transactions stem from the different characteristics, needs, and incomes of residents in different areas. The relevance of this research lies in understanding the social dimensions driving housing diversity among buyers and sellers. In a market economy, meeting the evolving needs of market participants is crucial. Consequently, stakeholders in the housing market focus on understanding buyer needs, changing trends, and adapting to the heterogeneity of the housing options. The housing market, characterized by significant information asymmetry, underscores the importance of comprehensively studying the social dimensions of housing diversity, particularly its impact on market value and transaction prices. Viewing households as heterogeneous social systems highlights the dominance of the social dimension in the housing market, necessitating a comprehensive exploration of its quantitative and qualitative aspects. Findings can inform managerial decisions to mitigate information asymmetry, improve housing availability, stabilize prices, and improve the market value of properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to econometrically estimate the effect of the direction of window exposure on the unit price of housing. The research hypothesis according to which the exposure of windows to the east increases the unit price of apartments is verified, and is based on observations of the market for units in buildings with exposure to two sides of the world (east and west). Research into the various characteristics that affect real estate prices is being conducted around the world. The main focus is on the impact of features which we are certain about, i.e. date, area, number of rooms, etc., i.e. non-contentious and reasonably easy to identify as to the condition of the feature. The results of the study are to capture certain regularities that will give a glimpse of how the exposure of the apartment's windows to a given direction of the world affected prices. Through the implementation of the survey, it can be determined whether a particular side of the world is better perceived by buyers. The study was conducted on data 2015-2023 in one of Poland's largest cities - Szczecin, where the exposure of the windows of the apartments was to the east or west. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the anchoring bias in the real estate market, focusing on the impact of uninformative random values on price estimations. Through a randomized controlled trial, the study examines whether selective accessibility contributes to the anchoring effect and to what extent the bias is transmitted from estimated asking prices to transaction prices on the primary housing market. The study was conducted in 2023 among Krakow University of Economics students on the example of the Krakow housing market in Poland. A multiple regression model indicates that randomly assigned numbers serve as cues affecting price estimations, with potential differences of up to 10.5% of the asking price offered by a developer. Additionally, gender and decision-making competencies influence estimation patterns, suggesting varying attitudes towards price-setting strategies that can be implemented by developers. These findings contribute to understanding the complexities of decision-making in real estate markets and highlight avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of home‐buying is commonly discussed and understood in terms of both asset acquisition and its connection to speculative financial practices utilized to attempt to correct for structural market crises. These dimensions further the possibilities for potential wealth accumulation that assist individuals, families, and corporate actors. This visual essay, emerging out of a decade‐long investigation of the housing market in the American state of Arizona, USA, is the result of a collaboration between a visual ethnographer and a sociologist, which aimed to nuance an understanding of housing markets along social, spatial, and historical axes. The essay reveals connections between interpersonal dynamics of taste‐making and, contrary to dominant liberal economic logic, the sometimes‐limited horizons of choices for families attempting to engage in what we describe as "the ritual of homebuying." Socially and historically, we discuss how the practice involves the enlistment of a number of peripheral actors attempting to facilitate the home‐buying process who use tactics to draw families into the housing market. Spatially, families with aspiring middle‐class values are, often enough, driven to peripheral urban and suburban zones to try to align their budgets and their ideals. Ultimately then, what turns out to be decisive is the narrow set of parameters as defined by the web of actors inside the real estate market, rather than, as some agents within the real estate industry abstractly argue, "what the market will bear." Put differently, what the market will bear is narrowly defined choices that intersect with cultural values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Comment analyzes the entrance of institutional investors into the singlefamily rental market after the Great Recession of 2008. The collapse of the housing market during the Great Recession fundamentally changed the ownership structure of U.S. single-family homes in two distinct ways. First, the number of families renting single-family homes soared. And second, institutional investors entered the single-family home market, buying many homes and converting them into rental properties. This postrecession reality has introduced a housing puzzle: the pricing trends of single-family rentals in the decade after the Great Recession suggest that institutional investors have captured monopolistic power over the single-family rental market despite owning a relatively small market share. Thus, this Comment evaluates the housing puzzle through the lens of antitrust law. While a potential antitrust case appears to suffer from the critical weaknesses of low entry barriers and market shares, analyzing institutional entrance into the single-family rental market under antitrust merger doctrine reveals that the case is stronger than it may initially seem. Although it is hard to envision a successful antitrust lawsuit against institutional investors today, there are reasons to believe these weaknesses will disappear if these market trends continue tomorrow. Furthermore, scrutinizing the entrance under alternative merger theories, such as the unilateral or coordinated effects theories, illustrates that a Clayton Act case would be more impactful than originally thought. After evaluating the antitrust case, this Comment considers how the housing market can instruct antitrust doctrine's further evolution, since commentators across academia, the media, and politics all criticize institutional entrance. By highlighting how unique market facts in housing obfuscate market power, this Comment suggests expanding the merger analysis to include not just levels and changes in concentration, but also orders of magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevailing norm in Ghana's rental housing market involves a mandatory and recurrent advance rent payment of two years or more by renters to their landlords. This paper employs sociological institutionalism, coupled with mixed-methods research design, to investigate the challenges renters face in adhering to the norm and its associated implications. Based on a survey of 362 renters across Ghana and an in-depth literature review, our findings demonstrate that extended advance rent periods, employment-related reasons, and limited savings are the primary factors contributing to the challenges renters face regarding the norm. Adhering to this norm often transforms renters into perpetual borrowers, limits personal development, and alters savings behaviour. The norm's deep entrenchment can be attributed to Ghana's political economy, market operations, and institutional deficiencies, perpetuating its prevalence. This research has implications for proposed interventions in the rental housing sector and advances our theoretical understanding of the emergence of distinct norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article illuminates how local government uses strategic planning in a context characterized as neo-liberalist-oriented housing market, to frame the broad varieties of planning and policy-instruments they possess to reach the goal of more inclusive housing markets. In line with other studies showing how European cities take passive, active, reactive and protective roles in their housing policies, our study of four Norwegian front-runner cities shows that their roles vary. Two of the cities, Tromsø and Oslo, have taken the most explicitly stated proactive role – by having a clear redistributional goal of 'affordable housing' and have established operational units in their organization (or by public-private companies) to implement it. All the cities have worked systematically with a more comprehensive housing policy, which have increased their ability to integrate their policy areas and use their different policy tools in a coordinated effort for more inclusive housing markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mortgage credit has been central in fuelling housing market dynamics in many countries. While mortgage debt and house price increases used to go hand in hand, we see an uncoupling post-global financial crisis, with relative mortgage debts decreasing while house prices are increasing at unprecedented rates. This article scrutinises this uncoupling, contributing in three ways. First, we argue it is representative of how debt-driven housing dynamics have been supplemented by wealth-driven ones: while mortgage debt remains crucial, it has stagnated, and increased wealth investments have fuelled a new round of price increases. Second, we explore key examples of wealth-driven housing dynamics: the increase in private landlordism (buy-to-let), older homeowners reinvesting accumulated housing wealth and intergenerational house purchases. Third, we demonstrate that these dynamics are associated with increasing fractures along the lines of class, age and place, particularly benefiting affluent and older insiders while advancing uneven development. We base our arguments on an empirical analysis of the Netherlands, a country with a highly financialised owner-occupied market boasting one of the highest mortgage-debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, but our arguments have wider relevance. We conclude that current dynamics point to a new era of house price rentierism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing security is fundamental to the life of rural-urban migrants in cities, and the housing choices of rural-urban migrants have drawn increasing attention in recent studies. However, the role of housing policies is still yet to be explored. This paper aims to investigate the effect of housing policies on rural-urban migrants' purchasing intention. Taking China as an example, the empirical results indicate that, somewhat surprisingly, the home purchase restriction policy implemented by the Chinese government raises the floating population's intention to purchase houses in the host city. Yet, such a linkage varies with income and housing status among the floating population, while it gives rise to changes in their consumption behaviors. This study thus provides new insights into the effect of housing policies and how floating populations make housing purchase decisions, yielding critical implications on how to optimize housing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are analysing Stockholm, Sweden's regulated rental housing market, by analysing the distribution of rental apartments based on a person's position in the housing agency queue. Our objective is to examine queue times and estimate the demand for rent-regulated apartments, as well as the market's income elasticity. Using the hedonic two-step approach, we use empirical data from rental contracts provided by the Stockholm Housing Agency to investigate the relationship between individual waiting times and their characteristics, such as income, age, and family composition. The empirical analysis found a strong willingness to pay for rent-regulated apartments, especially for larger homes in better locations with lower regulated rent. The demand for rental apartments increases with increasing income, but this effect is less pronounced in the current distribution system. The findings will be valuable to real estate developers, property owners, and city planners to improve policies for the rental housing market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-income earners and others facing housing market barriers have long sought to save costs by sharing. Potentially a release valve in constrained markets, the share sector is poorly understood due to the difficulty of tracing informal negotiations between cohabiting households. However, the rise of online accommodation platforms opens new opportunities to view these hidden arrangements while also propelling new practices under the broader financialisation of housing and 'platformisation' of daily life. With reference to Sydney, Australia, one of the world's most expensive housing markets, we use platform data to investigate the contemporary share housing sector, using listings placed by people both seeking and offering shared accommodation via Flatmates.com.au. Our study contributes to emerging literature at the intersection between informal housing markets and platformisation, revealing a complex rental sector where costs may be discounted but are not necessarily affordable for lower income earners unable to access more appropriate or secure alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do real-estate investors make decisions about where to purchase properties? In recent years, an increasing share of the market has gone to investors, making it critical that we understand the behaviors of these important actors. This study examines investment as a relational process. Through 74 interviews with real estate investors, as well as additional interviews with homeowners and renters in low- to middle-income neighborhoods in Baltimore, I find that strategic interactions and intimate relational work among professional and amateur investors are key to understanding how properties are sold. Professional investors cultivate bonds with new investors by identifying common goals and obstacles. They also use concealment strategies to sell homes, including: legal concealment, concealment through bundling, and concealment through brokers. Legal concealment involves using legal vehicles to transfer properties between owners. Concealment through bundling occurs when properties are bundled together to be sold in bulk. Finally, concealment through brokers entails finding brokers who can connect sellers to investors from other markets. These strategies obscure not only the nature of the relationship between buyers and sellers but also the quality of products being sold. The series of exchanges resemble how products are sold within direct-selling organizations and other predatory industries, which rely on a pyramid-like structure of sponsors and distributors. Furthermore, concealment strategies are more likely to happen in weaker markets and poorer neighborhoods where investor behavior is less constrained—this suggests that concealment has potential to increase urban inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the sharp and persistent increase in both house prices and rents, the need to increase housing supply in the Irish market has become increasingly pressing over the last number of years. While a number of Government policy initiatives have been introduced, it is clear that actual levels of housing supply are still somewhat below the level of demand, with official Government targets suggesting a significant difference between the two. Given the difficulties experienced by the supply side of the domestic housing market, it is informative and interesting to contrast housing supply in the Irish market with that of Ireland’s nearest housing markets; in particular, the Northern Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh markets. These markets share many of the characteristics of the Irish market in terms of planning and regulatory regimes as well as cultural preferences for certain property types compared with continental housing markets. In this paper we, therefore, build on previous work by Egan and McQuinn (2023a) to assess the relationship between house prices and supply levels across the different Irish and UK markets. This serves as an important benchmark by which to evaluate the performance of the supply side of the Irish residential market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online interactive 3D visualizations can enhance understanding of the built environment, including non-physical aspects such as property value and price. With access to large-scale open datasets, a key challenge in building such interactive 3D mapping interfaces is the efficiency of visualization methods. Modern GPU-accelerated front-end mapping libraries present a solution to this problem. This research proposes a 'front-end' native approach to create a web-based visual analytics framework for large scale spatiotemporal data. The Australian Property Market Explorer exemplifies this framework by visualizing a large dataset of property sales in New South Wales, Australia. This tool allows users to explore and analyse property market patterns at various geographic scales. The proposed framework offers advantages over traditional methods such as scalability and reliability while promising use-cases such as aiding planners in infrastructure and transportation decisions and assisting property valuation professionals in analysing property price trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The swiftlet farming industry is fast-growing and contributes to Malaysia's economic growth. Nonetheless, dirty and noisy surroundings caused by bird droppings and audio systems are unattractive and may adversely impact the housing market. Hence, this study seeks to ascertain the price impacts of the swiftlet farming industry. The first objective defines the hedonic model by reviewing its definition, theoretical framework, methodological process, and house price applications. The second objective explores factors influencing house prices, including the animal farming industry, through a literature review. The third objective evaluates the impact of the swiftlet farming industry on house prices. Ten-year house transaction data and spatial data provided by the Valuation and Property Services Department and Municipal District of Bentong are used to construct the Hedonic model. The result is evaluated based on its logical, statistical and predictive performance. The study found that swiftlet farming in Bentong has a negative impact on house prices, with an inverse price impact that increases with distance from the farming area. Buyers are reluctant to pay for houses near farming due to noise pollution and obstruction. This study supports international and national agendas relating to environment and health sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the usefulness of adding a discrete choice model to the hedonic model via a finite mixture approach. Our approach leads to different hedonic models for different housing market segments based on household information. As such, the proposed method goes beyond measuring the average price of housing attributes. As a case study, we estimate the finite mixture model for the Miami and Louisville metropolitan areas using information on race, ethnicity, and income from the American Housing Survey. We find that the model outperforms the standard hedonic model or a model with linear interaction terms between demographics and housing characteristics. Moreover, market segmentation is based on a complex combination of race, ethnicity, and income. For Louisville, Black households need 2.5 times higher income than White households to advance to a higher market segment and even at high incomes tend to occupy their own segment. For Miami, low-income, non-Hispanic households live in their own segment even if occupying the same dwelling size as households in other segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 1 July 2016, the Wet doorstroming huurmarkt (Rental Market Transition Act) was implemented in the Netherlands. This law made it possible to temporarily rent out a property for a maximum of two years. The law was created to promote flexibility in the rental market. In particular, better allocation of households was the goal. This paper empirically analyses the impact of temporary contracts by considering the frequency of short stays (up to 2 years). We investigate the changes in this frequency since 2016. We also consider possible implications of the introduction of temporary contracts for rents, residential mobility, and duration of vacancy. We quantify the benefits of short stays to landlords, which mirror the cost of tenants, in terms of higher rental revenues. We also find that residential mobility in the private rental market increased significantly after temporary contracts were allowed, not only in the first 24 months of stay, but overall, as intended by the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how housing market conditions shape the housing careers of Australians. Utilising data from the Australian Census spanning from 1991 to 2021, we observe significant differences in ownership rates at age 30 across birth cohorts. Moreover, these differences widen significantly as housing affordability falls. Using synthetic cohort techniques, we evaluate the persistence of these differences. Our results reveal that while the homeownership rates of younger cohorts 'catch up' somewhat with those of their older counterparts, a substantial gap remains at age 50. Early access to homeownership is also linked to the ownership of larger homes by middle age. Our study underscores the long‐term consequences of housing market conditions on homeownership trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates patterns in the chaotic appearance of self-help incremental housing in a kampung settlement. Many previous studies have investigated suitable incremental housing for low-income residents, but the pattern of self-help incremental housing has not been carefully investigated. The shape grammar method is used to identify the delivered pattern of self-help incremental housing, and in-depth interviews are performed to clarify the reasons for the pattern found. This study finds that the organized chaotic pattern of self-help incremental housing depends on geographical location and familial relationships, which allow construction over the perimeter of a land parcel through negotiation to reach agreement between homeowners and neighbors. Further, self-help incremental housing is driven by external and internal factors, such as the lack of affordability in the housing market, the mismatch of available job opportunities with the credentials and competencies, and the practiced social relationships among kin or relatives, which demand the expansion of the size of the residence to allow sufficient meeting space and privacy for the core and extended family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]