This paper explores the sociotechnical change necessary for the introduction of collaborative housing projects into the Czech super-homeownership housing regime. To better understand the obduracy of the current housing system, we examine the major barriers and threats to the implementation of such projects through a series of workshops with non-experts in selected cities. Our findings suggest that the housing system’s obduracy is related to social imaginaries that we conceptualise as the ‘imaginary of social inertia’. This form of imaginary, along with other factors such as a lack of supporting legal and financial infrastructures, creates a complex network of obstacles that reduce the likelihood of such housing projects gaining ground. In conclusion, our research emphasises the role of imaginaries in studying obduracy and thus provides valuable insights into the processes of urban sociotechnical change.

We propose applying the standard aggregate demand and aggregate supply model (AD-AS) to the housing market. It is a very simple and intuitive tool that can help shed light on the major forces at play in the market and that can supplement the use of the general equilibrium and dynamic stochastic equilibrium models (DSGE). The latter models are very sophisticated and aim to cover many aspects of the economy, but they require a significant number of long time series to estimate the model parameters. However, in many countries, such as post-socialist countries, the time series are short. Those models moreover cover only real house prices, but in certain situations we should consider real and nominal prices at the same time.

This paper aims to examine whether self-reported home valuations can be a substitute for objective market data in studies on the level of housing wealth inequality. In order to achieve this aim, information on subjective values of flats and their features in Warsaw (Poland) and Prague (Czechia) was used. Next, hedonic models were estimated to calculate the objective values of these residential properties. The results indicated that, on average, homeowners overestimated their real estate by 2.10% in Warsaw and underestimated by 5.49% in Prague. Finally, using tests for the equality of variances, it was examined whether the level of housing wealth inequality differed significantly when calculated using subjective and objective home values. The findings showed that self-reported home values cannot serve as a perfect proxy for market values when assessing the level of housing wealth inequality in both cities.

The Portuguese housing market underwent major transformations between 2010 and 2020. Until then, a delicate but resentful stability had long existed, with distorted rent schemes and low annual price increases proportional to the national economy and the income of the Portuguese population. After the financial crisis, several internal and external variables converged to dramatically change this scenario. In recent years, a growing number of researchers have centred their attention on the difficulties that the Portuguese urban middle-class populations are facing in trying to find homes. This paper analyses these challenges and their impact quantitatively, focusing on the affordability of housing for purchase or rent and considering synthetic indicators for average household incomes in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area between the beginning of 2016 and the end of 2019. The results show that the cost of buying or renting a house in the main Portuguese urban system has become much more detached from local incomes. The article concludes with reflections on the structural reasons for the enduring inequalities in the housing markets and the difficulties recognising territorial cohesion and spatial justice as important elements shaping urban and housing policies in Portugal.

Affordable housing is the biggest challenge being faced by the city of Mumbai, which styles itself as an emerging Global Financial Centre. The city has the image of being home to a stark dualism, with slums abutting modern skyscrapers. Over the years, adequate policy attention has been given to slums and with the implementation of the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme slum dwellers are being provided with housing in multi-storey buildings and are being granted tenancy rights to the dwellings. However, an emerging area of concern is the large housing stock that is non-slum but is old and dilapidated. The collapse of an old and dilapidated building in Dongri in July 2019 that killed twelve people and the one at Bhendi Bazaar in 2017 that killed thirty-three has brought this problem into the mainstream and new policies have been initiated to address the problem. Implementing these policies seems to be a challenge, and this is the result of different factors. This article looks at the housing problem in Mumbai from a policy perspective and analyses the implementation challenges of the new policy aimed at redeveloping the old and dilapidated housing stock.

This paper seeks to reflect on issues related to the nature of housing choice, drawing on qualitative empirical data collected in in-depth interviews.  This paper discusses two perspectives related to housing choice, namely, the ‘market perspective of housing choice’ and the ‘perspective of housing choice for well-being’. The ‘market perspective of housing choice’ highlights that desirability generally increases with a greater range of housing choice as the housing supply increases till a climax is reached, after which a further expansion of housing choice may indicate an excess housing supply, which may not be advantageous and home-buyers may instead ‘decide not to choose or buy’.  The ‘perspective of housing choice for well-being’ reveals that choice in the housing arena is often viewed as a means to eventual well-being, rather than as an end in itself.  Housing choice is ‘genuine’ and ‘meaningful’ if there are meaningful and significant options among a few desirable housing alternatives. ‘Fake housing choice’ involves having to choose from among housing options that are all generally bad.

As a developed welfare state, Finland has a long history of and continuing political support for housing policies, ranging from non-profit rental housing to owner-occupied housing supported by tax deductions. The current neoliberal critique, however, has questioned the efficiency and moral foundations of the established policies. This critique has taken as its target the difference between market rents and non-profit rents, citing this as an instance of ‘alternative costs’ for the city and, as such, as a form of subsidy that is unjustly distributed. However, the full picture of different housing subsidies – including those received by owner-occupiers – is not usually considered.  The paper concludes that the current debate does not take into account the ways in which different subsidies interact in the approaches used to provide affordable housing in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. As such the critique becomes tacitly political, although it is represented in terms of rationality and justice.

North to south migration in the U.S. and housing developers’ claims of benefits led to exponential growth in neighbourhood homeowners associations during recent decades. Sanctioned by state laws, association rules governing homeowners are usually initiated by developers who claim that the rules protect property values. But the claim is not supported by empirical analysis. Inflation adjusted annual percentage returns in consecutive sales of a sample of 900 most recent home sales in Duval County Florida, Pima County Arizona and St. Louis County Missouri during late 2017 and early-2018 were examined. The results revealed that the annual percentage returns on homes sold in homeowners associations were significantly less than those of homes in other neighbourhoods statistically controlling for property characteristics and prevailing economic conditions at the time of the original purchase. Correlates of home prices at any point in time are not predictive of percentage return from purchase to sale.

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.

In the midst of rapid urbanisation and economic growth, the developing world faces challenges in the relationships between land, poverty, and security. Rising social and economic exclusion and insufficient land regulations have spawned an informal housing sector. Given the risk to the broad base of middle- and low-income households in developing countries and the growing demands in urbanising land markets, it is imperative that governments develop a more fine-grained understanding of their land and housing policies.  Local authorities must also begin to consider innovative ways to preserve affordability in a market-responsive way. Community land trusts (CLTs) provide one means of resolving the paradox between formalising land ownership and mitigating exclusion from an increasingly unaffordable land market. CLTs seek to balance private property rights, which are the cornerstone of modern land markets and individual wealth, with the affordability and accessibility needs of the community.

This paper studies the roles of the new-style PRH (public rental housing) programme in Shanghai’s socio-spatial dynamics. It shows that the development of PRH in Shanghai is mainly a result of a deliberate urban development policy in line with other strategies such as city marketing and gentrification. The analysis is augmented with data from a questionnaire survey of PRH tenants in Shanghai. Finally, this paper identifies challenges for the future development of the public rental housing sector in China.