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Speculation and Real Estate: Can Speculation Contribute to an Efficient Real Estate Market?

In financial markets, speculation is justified by its contribution to liquidity, hedging, and, if rationally done, for adjusting price to value. Derivatives are essential to turn speculation into an element that contributes an efficient market. Property assets have the distinctive feature of being, residential and productive assets, and, investment assets. This paper studies how speculation may have a positive contribution to the real estate market by regarding it from the triple perspective of property, primitive financial assets, and derivatives. We approach an answer by trying to identify which assets are needed to this end and how they can contribute to guide speculation to efficiency. On this basis, we examine the development of the derivatives on real estate indexes and the perspectives of their future evolution, including their impact on the real market.

29.6.2014 | Maria Teresa Bosch-Badia, Joan Montllor-Serrats, Anna Maria Panosa Gubau, Maria-Antonia Tarrazon-Rodon | Volume: 1 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 44-52 | 10.13060/23362839.2014.2.2.114

Imposing Tenure Mix on Residential Neighbourhoods: A Review of Actions to Address Unfinished Housing Estates in the Republic of Ireland

The ‘Celtic Tiger’ years (1995-2007) saw prosperous economic growth in the Republic of Ireland and an intense period of housing construction and urban development. In 2008 Ireland entered into recession, which resulted in a collapse of the property market and the construction industry. This collapse left just over 2,000 housing developments unfinished across the country. Since 2008, the Irish Government, in conjunction with local authorities, has been developing strategies and plans to finalise these unfinished estates. This paper reports on the current practices for resolving issues in unfinished housing estates in the Republic of Ireland, with a particular focus on the plans to utilise empty housing for social housing purposes. The paper critiques the ways in which this imposed tenure mix can potentially threaten housing policy objectives for sustainable and balanced communities. It is the contention of this paper that this housing practice needs urgent review.

28.6.2014 | Therese Kenna, Michael O'Sullivan | Volume: 1 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 53-62 | 10.13060/23362839.2014.1.2.115

State - Market - Family Triangle Revisited: Visualizing and Expanding a Housing Studies Theoretical Tool

This short paper revisits and revises the over-used State-Market-Household triangle as a theoretical analytical tool, proposing its repositioning at the centre of Housing and Welfare Studies, and reopening the debate. It is shown that this tool does not remain useful for researchers alone but also as a means to a more effective communication of results to a wider non-specialist audience. Towards this goal two conceptual adaptations are proposed. Firstly, the addition of the time parameter in assessing the triangle’s transformations from one era to another, or comparing systems with similarities but on different evolutionary phases. Secondly, the – by default – understanding of the triangle as a dynamic configuration, due to inter and intra-polar shifts.

27.6.2014 | Panagiotis - Dimitrios Tsachageas, Mark Stephens | Volume: 1 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 63-69 | 10.13060/23362839.2014.1.2.116

Housing Price Volatility and Econometrics

Econometric models have produced contradictory results and have failed to provide warning of housing market crashes. The article should illustrate the inability of econometrics to reliably predict the last house price bubble and detect the disequilibrium in the housing markets. The authors will demonstrate on particular situation that two distinct but well specified econometric models can lead to different outcomes. The authors argue that the demand for housing is influenced by social constructs, social norms, ideologies, unrealistic expectations, symbolic patterns, and the actual choice of housing is the outcome of complex social interactions with reference groups. Consequently, it is necessary to analyse the potential instability of social constructs, norms, expectations and the changing character of social interactions to better understand purchasing behaviour and, then, house price volatility.

26.6.2014 | Petr Sunega, Martin Lux, Petr Zemčík | Volume: 1 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 70-78 | 10.13060/23362839.2013.1.2.117