Housing Stock Research Articles

Renovation Wave in Europe: Low-Carbon Design for the Refurbishment of Social Housing in Southern Italy

The public housing stock, called social housing, in Italy was developed between the 1950s and the 1980s. As of today, the first residential developments are almost nearing their end-of-life age and are in need of urgent and intensive renovation. The European Commission, with the Renovation Wave, has set a goal of doubling the rate of building renovation over the next 10 years, reducing emissions, improving energy performance, and promoting decarburization. Renovation interventions, including structural, functional, energy, and plant upgrading interventions, etc., are to be preferred over integral demolition and reconstruction interventions, which have significant repercussions in terms of managerial and social discomfort. The case studies examined concern renovation interventions aimed at energy efficiency, functional adaptation of housing, as well as façade restyling. The design variants analyzed were evaluated in terms of CO2e emissions, according to life cycle inventory (LCI) and Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) approaches. This approach has a twofold purpose: to propose design guidelines, with low CO2e emissions, through hypotheses of variants in the case studies, and to propose, to the economic operators, economically advantageous bidding scenarios in the procurement process.

The Spillover Effect of Stock Market Sentiment Intensity and Uncertainty on Housing Market in the United States

Investor sentiment is a key indicator of market performance. Many have studied how investor sentiment affects market returns or returns of different categories of stocks. Besides, many also studied how information revealed in media can affect the housing market. This paper focuses on the sentiment revealed in social media, Tweet, by combining these two key factors that have not been studied. This paper studies the spillover effect of stock market sentiment on the housing market by applying Vector Autoregression. The VAR model helps explain the relationship between housing prices and stock market sentiment from tweets, where sentiments are divided into sentiment intensity and sentiment uncertainty. The series of sentiment intensity and series of housing prices interact with each other, and the change in sentiment in the last period spills over to the housing market which affects housing prices, but the change in housing price does not affect sentiment in reverse. Similarly, the series of sentiment uncertainty and the series of housing prices interact with each other, and the change in sentiment diversity in the last period also spills over to the housing market which affects housing prices, but the change in housing price does not affect sentiment in reverse.

Carbon reduction potential of housing retrofits: Evidence from China

Carbon emissions have become a major contributor to global climate change, with the building sector representing one-third of the global energy demand, and the residential sector accounting for 70 % of final energy demand worldwide. The energy consumption for building cooling has grown rapidly in recent years. Housing retrofits have shown potential in improving building energy efficiency and thus aligning with objectives for energy-saving and carbon emissions reduction in the residential sector. Based on survey data from 28 provinces in China, this study estimates the impacts of housing retrofits on the building energy consumption for air conditioners, as well as impacts on the resulting carbon emissions. Employing Endogenous switching regression to mitigate self-selection bias and the consequent endogeneity problem, the analysis reveals that housing retrofits can reduce building energy consumption and consequent carbon emissions. Furthermore, factors including household characteristics, building attributes and geographic location can influence both residential energy consumption and carbon emissions. In addition, low-income households, families with children and those living in self-owned houses can benefit the most from housing retrofits. This study also offers recommendations to reducing household energy consumption and carbon emissions through improved renovation practices. These insights are instrumental for policymakers in identifying targeted policy objectives across diverse demographic groups. The findings hold relevance for other developing countries with large amounts of inefficient housing stock during rapid urbanization, and those prone to global warming, aiding their pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals.

RECONSTRUCTION OF HEATING SYSTEMS IN RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS WHILE MAINTAINING EXISTING HEAT SOURCES

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the need for real reconstruction of single-pipe vertical centralized heating systems, which are operated in most multi-story residential buildings in Ukraine, into apartment horizontal systems. The paper presents the main design shortcomings of heating systems in residential buildings built in the second half of the 20th century. The feasibility of using horizontal apartment systems is substantiated. For the first time, the heating system was reconstructed during the heating season without displacing residents and without stopping the existing heating system. A technical solution is proposed for supplying heat to apartments from an existing individual heating station with an elevator without its reconstruction. The article presents the results of a number of studies aimed at improving the heating system and determining the indicators of its economic and energy efficiency. Installation work can be carried out selectively in any number of apartments, and "old" and "new" heating systems can operate in parallel. The methodology for the reconstruction of heating systems presented in this paper can be used in the process of post-war restoration of the destroyed infrastructure of the housing stock of Ukraine. Modernizing in-building systems while maintaining the existing heat source is much cheaper than decentralizing heat supply by installing independent heating systems with a gas boiler in each apartment. The main conclusions of the article include that the reconstruction of existing heating systems is an objective necessity, without which the subscriber's influence on his heat consumption is impossible. The modernization described in this article is dictated by all the regulatory deadlines for major repairs of heating systems, which in most cases are more than twice as long.

The long-term implications of destruction during the Second World War on private wealth in Germany

AbstractBy the end of the Second World War, an estimated 20% of the West German housing stock had been destroyed. Building on a theoretical life-cycle model, this paper examines the persistent consequences of the war for individual wealth across generations. As our empirical basis, we link a unique historical dataset on the levels of wartime destruction in 1739 West German cities with micro data on individual wealth at the beginning of the twenty-first century from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Among individuals born in cities or villages that were badly damaged during the Second World War, wealth is still about 10% lower today. Similarly, the destruction of parental birthplace has significant negative implications for the wealth of their descendants. These negative implications are robust after controlling for a rich set of pre-war regional and city-level control variables. In complementary empirical exercises, we study potential channels such as inheritances, health, and education, through which the wartime destruction could have affected wealth accumulation across generations.

OBJECTIVE HOUSING SALES AND RENT PRICES IN REPRESENTATIVE HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS: IMPLICATIONS FOR WEALTH, INEQUALITY, HOUSING MARKET, AND AFFORDABILITY STATISTICS

Many economic analyses require hypothetical but realistic sales and rent prices for properties representative of the housing stock and reflecting current market conditions. To achieve this, we replace subjectively reported prices in a representative household survey in Luxembourg with objectified hedonic imputations informed by observable market data. Thus, we propose a powerful tool for assessing the health and affordability of housing markets, compiling housing‐related statistics and simulating hypothetical scenarios. This approach also enables us to test for the reliability of survey responses. When switching to objectified values, we detect shifts in the wealth distribution, large regional variation in market indicators, and striking affordability concerns: only 18 percent of Luxembourg's renters could theoretically afford to purchase their inhabited dwellings given current market conditions. Further, participants' tendency to mis‐estimate market values strongly correlates with tenure length and type, dwelling type, income, and wealth.

Homeownership Habitus and Residential Practice of Highly-Skilled Chinese Migrants in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a “homeownership habitus” concept to understand the residential practice of highly-skilled young Chinese migrants in the Netherlands. Using 41 interviews, we show how and why they typically become homeowners soon after securing stable employment. Even without planning to stay in the Netherlands long-term, buying properties was taken for granted, sanctioned by the Chinese value framework whereby homeownership is not only a status-marker and rational economic choice, but integral to adulthood transitions. Homeownership was often enabled by familial intergenerational support, also functioning as a transnational investment strategy. Such rapid tenure transition included spatial strategies to buy in “good” suburban locations or more affordable lower-reputation localities. The historic city centres of Amsterdam and Utrecht were deemed expensive and housing stock old, while Rotterdam’s modern city centre was popular among them. This paper contributes to literature on highly-skilled Chinese in Western cities, residential practice of migrants and transnational materialization of habitus across fields.

Realizing NetZero in social housing: strategic public procurement and internal stakeholder engagement

ABSTRACT Energy costs and fuel poverty are major concerns for social housing tenants, many of whom are vulnerable citizens. To meet challenging NetZero targets, public organizations have used strategic public procurement (SPP) in decarbonizing social housing stock and to make it more energy efficient. Drawing on SPP and stakeholder engagement, we theoretically argue that public organizations’ diverse set of internal stakeholders are integral to SPP. Empirically, we provide evidence of a disconnect between organization-facing and customer-facing stakeholder groups which must be considered and addressed if NetZero targets, and organizational responsibility are to be achieved when implementing SPP.

RENOVATION OF A TOWER-TYPE INDUSTRIAL BUILDING AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE WATER TOWER OF THE UKRAINIAN STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGIES

Purpose. Research and analysis of the main approaches to the renovation of tower-type industrial buildings, establishing a connection between the geometric space and the functional-spatial zoning of the premises created on their basis. Methodology. The study is devoted to one of the groups of neglected engineering structures, such as water towers. Such industrial facilities are already embedded in the infrastructure of the city, as a rule, they are embedded in dense urban development, which adds leverage for the preservation and renovation of such facilities. During the reconstruction of tower-type industrial buildings, there are problems of dismantling, removal and disposal of a large volume of structures and building materials. Study of national and international experience in renovation of tower-type industrial buildings. According to the requirements of DBN V.2.2-15:2019 "Buildings and structures. Residential buildings. Basic provisions" to the areas of the premises in a residential building, their placement in the space of the tower is analyzed in the process of designing the floors of the tower. Findings. The possibility of renovating the tower-type industrial structure of the water tower of the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technology into a residential building was considered. The architectural design of a 3-story residential building with the arrangement of separate entrances to the building with the help of an elevator and stairs and the distribution of spaces by floor according to functional purpose was completed. Originality. For the first time, the concept of a volume-planning solution for apartments in the limited space of a water tower was developed. This example gives impetus to the development of the reconstruction of tower-type buildings, their preservation as a historical and cultural heritage of Ukraine. Practical value. Water towers that are no longer used for their primary purpose can be reconstructed and can replenish the housing stock, acquire the significance of cultural and public centers in cities and settlements.

Case Study: Understanding and Responding to Homelessness Crisis in Chilliwack

This paper presents an in-depth discussion on the breakdown of government programs over the last few decades that have eroded the low-to-middle income housing stock and ballooned housing unaffordability in BC with a focus on Chilliwack. The goals of this paper are twofold, and they include: (1) unpack the causes of homelessness and its implications; (2) examine the current responses to the homelessness crisis. Most of the data collection done to support this analysis is drawn from current news stories and government websites so that the most up-to-date and impactful happenings are incorporated. This article examines the root causes of homelessness followed by the highlights of existing solution efforts and gaps in programs and policies using a case example of Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. This paper briefly discusses the recommendations and next step to address the homelessness crisis in BC with a focus on Chilliwack.

RESIDUALIZED PUBLIC HOUSING IN ROMANIA: Peripheralization of ‘the Social’ and the Racialization of ‘Unhouseables’

AbstractThis study analyzes public housing residualization as a multiscalar phenomenon, providing specific details about how it happened in a Central and East European context via the marketization of the housing system, the peripheralization of ‘the social’ and the racialization of ‘unhouseables’. It employs secondary statistical data, interviews, and document analyses to examine the endemic features of global capitalism within Romania's housing regime. The study shows that the dismantlement of the state‐socialist establishment has resulted in a lower social rental rate than in core capitalist countries. It observes that when the public housing stock has generally been depleted, newly established social housing is relocated to the peripheries of cities as a nonmarketable component of the dualist public housing sector. In Baia Mare, the municipality has created social housing enclaves for vulnerable groups associated with dangerous behavior by excluding them from other forms of public housing, whereas in Cluj‐Napoca, it has attempted to exclude marginalized people from public housing by turning it into a site of class warfare. In both cases, the housing stock under scrutiny is associated with the racialized Roma ethnicity. The approach adopted in the study enables the residualization of public housing to be addressed across the peripheralization–racialization nexus.

Affordability of Owner-Occupied Housing across US Cities

This paper compares the affordability of owner-occupied housing across US cities. We apply a new method for imputing the rental value of owner-occupied housing developed in Diamond and Diamond (2024) that accounts for unobserved house quality. On average, the rental value of owner-occupied housing is 3.2 percent above that implied by standard hedonic methods. Hedonic methods overestimate rental value of owner-occupied housing in the most regulated cities and sharply underestimate it in the least regulated cities. We provide suggestive evidence that this heterogeneity reflects misallocation, where high-quality housing stock cannot be built in the most desirable parts of regulated cities.

Circular and Adaptive Transformation of the Housing Stock towards a Regenerative Future

Circular and Adaptive Transformation of the Housing Stock towards a Regenerative Future

Cashing out?: how small-scale landlords in Philadelphia perceive big development and tax policies

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the perspectives of small-scale landlords in Philadelphia regarding tax policies intended to incentivize big development and revalorize the housing stock. Drawing from 71 in-depth, semi-structured interviews collected between 2017 and 2019 with landlords and property managers in Philadelphia, we find that the city’s small-scale landlords perceive the implementation of tax policies which incentivize big development to be negatively impacting them. Landlords utilize varying approaches for coping with tax increases and other economic pressures, and for some small-scale landlords, the tax policies and heightened competition from big developers are pushing them to reevaluate their position among Philadelphia’s housing providers and cash out. This trend could exacerbate the lack of affordable housing options and adversely affect economically vulnerable tenants.

The Implementation of Coordinated Access to End Homelessness in Ontario, Canada

To receive federal homelessness funding, cities in Canada must adhere to federal policy directives associated with the government of Canada’s Reaching Home program. These directives include the implementation of a homelessness management information system (HMIS) and a Coordinated Access process. In this article, we draw on 90 in-depth interviews and extensive policy and institutional analysis to assess the implementation of Coordinated Access in one Ontario city. Our findings suggest that none of the four pillars of Coordinated Access (access, assessment, prioritization, matching, and referral) work as intended. Structural and systemic challenges (e.g., related to housing stock, staff turnover, inaccessibility of shelters, criminalizing municipal bylaws, and the reliability of the assessment tool) undermine the efficacy of the process as a means of improving transparency, service coordination, and housing outcomes. Despite being an early adopter of the Coordinated Access process, this Ontario municipality continues to struggle with a growing housing affordability crisis and an unhoused population.

Realized dynamic effect of retrofits on energy consumption in Soviet-era multi-apartment buildings

Retrofit programs for old and highly energy-inefficient housing stock from the Soviet era are widely believed to offer a rare win-win opportunity for mitigating climate change and addressing acute energy poverty issues in Eastern European urban neighborhoods. However, despite government subsidies and a push for greater energy efficiency, many people do not undertake retrofits. This raises the question: do these retrofits truly deliver the promised returns? This paper aims to examine the effects of retrofit programs on old Soviet-era multi-apartment buildings' realized dynamic energy savings in Lithuania by analyzing monthly energy bills. Our findings suggest that retrofits are associated with a 50% to 59% reduction in average space heating consumption across various post-retrofit periods. Additionally, retrofits have a short-term effect on electricity savings of 3% to 3.6%. However, our cost-benefit analysis indicates that the energy savings were not sufficiently large to cover the initial investment costs.

Ten questions concerning First Nations on-reserve housing in Canada

Indigenous Peoples are the original inhabitants of Turtle Island. In Canada, three distinct groups of Indigenous Peoples are formally recognized: First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. Roughly 40 % of First Nations people with Registered or Treaty Indian status live on-reserve. Relative to the general Canadian population, First Nations living on-reserve are more likely to live in inadequate housing conditions that include significantly higher rates of mold growth and overcrowding, with a higher proportion of existing on-reserve housing stock in need of major repairs. Efforts to improve on-reserve housing conditions must be understood in the context of colonial policies, which have systematically prevented First Nations from obtaining safe, secure, and sustainable housing. This paper aims to describe the range of challenges, concerns, and innovative solutions associated with First Nations on-reserve housing. Ten questions and answers have been presented to characterize the current state of First Nations on-reserve housing in relation to the rest of the Canadian housing stock, including an in-depth comparison of the differences between on-reserve and off-reserve housing. Known factors that result in inadequate on-reserve housing are discussed, as well as a review of various operational and construction-related challenges faced on-reserve, such as community remoteness, a lack of available skilled trades, and mold and moisture issues. Human health and well-being are also discussed as a key outcome of poor housing quality, looking at both physical and mental health in communities, with special attention to the indoor air quality impacts of overcrowding and the presence of mold.

Assessment of the Cost of Capital of the Southern Regions of the Central Federal District

Relevance. The assessment of assets located in a specific territory is an important methodological and practical task.The purpose of the article is to adjust Thomas Piketty's methodology for assessing regional wealth, taking into account the peculiarities of Russian accounting and statistical accounting and applying the adjusted methodology to the assessment of the cost of capital in the southern regions of the Central Federal District. The obtained estimates of the cost of capital for the Russian Federation as a whole are compared with Piketty's estimates as a benchmarking. The purpose is to assess the physical in the Central Federal District and seven southern regions of the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation for 2021. Objectives: to develop methods for assessing physical capital, taking into account the criticism of T. Piketty's methodology and eliminating its shortcomings; to assess the cost of physical capital of enterprises, organizations, housing, land and savings in the Central Federal District and seven southern regions of the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation.Methodology. The article was prepared within the framework of Thomas Piketty's capital valuation paradigm, adjusted to take into account the author's vision of the problem.Results. Quantitative estimates of the cost of physical capital in the Central Federal District and seven southern regions of the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation have been obtained.Conclusions. Piketty's methodology provides an underestimate of the cost of physical capital at the level of the southern regions of the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation. Underestimation is taking place in the assessment of the value of land, capital of enterprises and organizations and the value of housing stock. The highest cost of physical capital in the southern regions of the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation is in Voronezh (5,238 trillion rubles) and Belgorod regions (4,255 trillion rubles), the lowest is in Bryansk (1,772 trillion rubles) and Oryol (1,340 trillion rubles) regions. The ratio of the cost of physical capital in the southern regions of the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation to the gross regional product varies in the range from 5.16 (Tambov region) to 3.14 (Belgorod region). The average ratio of capital to GRP in the seven southern regions of the Central Federal District is 3.96, which corresponds to the global average.

Developing a Data-Driven AI Model to Enhance Energy Efficiency in UK Residential Buildings

Residential buildings contribute 30% of the UK’s total final energy consumption. However, with less than one percent of its housing stock being replaced annually, retrofitting existing homes has significant importance in meeting energy-efficiency targets. Consequently, many physics-based and data-driven models and tools have been developed to analyse the effects of retrofit strategies from various points of view. This paper aims to develop a data-driven AI model that predicts buildings’ energy performance based on their features under various retrofit scenarios. In this context, four different machine learning models were developed based on the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) dataset for residential buildings and standard assessment procedure (SAP) guidelines in the UK. Additionally, an interface was designed that enables users to analyse the effect of different retrofit strategies on a building’s energy performance using the developed AI models. The results of this study revealed the artificial neural network as the most accurate predictive model, with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.82 and a mean percentage error of 11.9 percent. However, some conceptual irregularities were observed across all the models when dealing with different retrofit scenarios. All summary, such tools can be further improved to offer a potential alternative or support to physics-based models, enhancing the efficiency of retrofitting processes in buildings.

What Is a Housing Shortage?

The United States has faced decades of increasing housing costs and declining construction. Many scholars and policymakers argue that additional supply is necessary to combat inadequate availability. Some critics, however, argue that the nation faces no housing shortage except for extremely low-income renters, which could be addressed by leveraging the existing stock and expanding the availability of rental vouchers. I argue instead for a continued emphasis on increasing supply as a mechanism to improve housing conditions. I show, first, that additional housing stock is associated with more units per additional resident in an area. Second, I demonstrate that increasing supply is positively associated with lower housing cost growth, though other issues, like household income growth, are likely more important variables in explaining affordability. Finally, I contest the use of metropolitan geographies as the most appropriate level for examining housing affordability, given the nation’s history of segregation and variation in access to opportunity.