Tenure Transitions Research Articles

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.

Making low-income and minority homeownership work: non-profit intermediary networks in the Chicago region

There is renewed political interest in promoting minority homeownership to reduce racial wealth gaps in the United States. In this paper, I call for a policy focus on sustained long-term home-buyer facilitation that could potentially mitigate the multi-faceted risks for low-income and minority households in buying homes, sustaining ownership, and negotiating tenure transitions. I offer an analysis of institutional intermediary structures in a post-crisis community development context that mediates the different stages of homeownership in the Chicago region. Analysis of four qualitative case studies shows that three types of institutions—housing institutions, community-based anchor organisations, and faith-based institutions form robust networks to provide systems of social support that go beyond housing and influence daily life experiences and destabilising life events for marginalised groups. This system of support is crucial as it impacts wealth-building trajectories for marginalised groups. Finally, my research also investigates the fragmentation and gaps in the support networks and makes a case for strengthening multi-scalar community support before rolling out subsidies for homeownership.

Mental and general health at the edges of owner occupation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to consider one test of a well-functioning housing system – its impact on wellbeing. Exploring one indicator of this, this study aims to track changes in mental and general health across a mix of tenure transitions and financial transactions in three jurisdictions: Australia, the UK and the USA.Design/methodology/approachUsing matched variables from three national panel surveys (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia, British Household Panel Survey/Understanding Society and Panel Study of Income Dynamics) over 17 years (2000–2017) to capture the sweep of the most recent housing cycle, this study adopts a difference-in-difference random-effects model specification to estimate the mental and general health effects of tenure change and borrowing behaviours.FindingsThere is an enduring health premium associated with unmortgaged owner-occupation. Mortgage debt detracts from this, as does the prospect of dropping out of ownership and into renting. A previously observed post-exit recovery in mental health – a debt-relief effect – is not present in the longer run. In fact, in some circumstances, both mental and general health deficits are amplified, even among those who eventually regain homeownership. Though there are cross-country differences, the similarities across these financialised housing systems are more striking.Practical implicationsThe well-being premium traditionally associated with owner occupation is under threat at the edges of the sector in all three jurisdictions. In this, there is cross-national convergence. There may therefore be scope to introduce policies to better support households at the edges of ownership that work across the board for debt-funded ownership-centred housing systems.Originality/valueThis paper extends the duration of a previous analysis of the impact of tenure transitions and financial transactions on well-being at the edges of ownership in the UK and Australia. The authors now track households over nearly two decades from the start of the millennium into a lengthy (post-global financial crisis) era of declining housing affordability. This study adds to the reach of the earlier study by adding a general health variable and a third jurisdiction, the USA.

Residential mobility and mental health

We examine the extent to which residential relocation within and between tenure types is associated with changes in mental health. We focus on four types of housing transition – rent-to-own, own-to-rent, own-to-own, and rent-to-rent – using Australian and UK panel data sets from 2001 to 2017. In both countries, transitions into homeownership and moves away from the mortgaged edges toward the unburdened mainstream of outright ownership are positively associated with mental health. On the other hand, shifts by mortgagors towards more precarious positions on the edges of ownership precipitate dips in mental health when there is exposure to high levels of payment and investment risks. Clearly, residential moves can both alleviate and introduce different kinds of risks that affect affordability. Moreover, tenure transitions have impacts on mental health beyond the impacts of payment and investment risks. However, we observe some cross-national differences in findings. In Australia, loss of homeownership has a negative impact on mental health that outweighs the mental health impacts of attaining ownership. In the UK, these findings are reversed. Acute housing affordability problems following moves in Australia, but not in the UK, are a significant driver of mental health outcomes. These differences have institutional explanations.

On the transmission of monetary policy to the housing market

We provide empirical evidence on the heterogeneous transmission of monetary policy to the housing market across and within countries. We use household-level data from Germany, Italy and Switzerland together with the respective monetary policy shocks identified from high-frequency data. We find that the pass-through of monetary policy shocks to rates of newly originated (fixed-rate) mortgages is twice as strong in Switzerland as in Germany and Italy. After an accommodative monetary policy shock, this is associated in the housing market with a larger immediate, and persistent increase of transitions from renting to owning; a stronger decrease in rents; and an increase of the price–rent ratio. Within Italy, we find a stronger pass-through to mortgage rates, housing tenure transitions and the price–rent ratio in the northern regions that have been characterized in the literature as more financially developed than the southern regions.

Tenure transitions at the edges of ownership: Reinforcing or challenging the status quo?

This paper provides an empirical overview of housing tenure transitions in Australia, the UK and the USA during a period of unprecedented economic instability in 2001–2017. Focusing on the neglected theme of episodic homeownership, we profile those who straddle the tenure divide by moving into and out of renting from time to time. Using panel data we model this ‘churn’ in three jurisdictions, showing that even the dislocation of a global financial crisis does not eclipse the independent impact of life events during rental spells. We find that whatever individuals bring from prior ownership, shocks occurring during a rental spell – unemployment, loss of a partner, additional dependent children – can be sufficient to prevent return. Churning is also health- and age-selective, adding ‘drop-out’ among the old to ‘lock-out’ for the young as a policy concern. Even those who successfully regain owner-occupation increase their credit and investment risks without necessarily improving their housing position. Overall ‘churners’ are a diverse constituency whose life chances are powerfully shaped by episodic ownership: what they share is time spent in an unacknowledged, under-instituted space between tenures where there is latent demand for innovative financial services and untapped potential for radical policy shifts.

The Global Financial Crisis and transition out of homeownership in Korea

We investigate the impact of the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on housing tenure transitions in Korea, focusing on the determinants of pathways out of homeownership. Using Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) data covering the period 1999-2016, we analyze tenure transitions made by owner occupiers on the cusp of homeownership. The Korean case is interesting because an asset-based rental lease type, known as chonsei, and monthly rental leases with varying amounts of deposit, comprise the vast majority of private rental options. Western-style monthly rental leases account for a very small market share. Paying close attention to the availability of these private rental contract types, we investigate tenure transition by homeowners exposed to competing risks in the aftermath of the GFC. Estimates from the Cox single-hazard model suggest that, other things being equal, the hazard of homeowners’ transiting to a rental lease during the crisis years is 32% larger than during the non-crisis period. We also find that the effects of the crisis on transitions out of ownership depend on the types of private rental arrangements available to homeowners. Finally, about 50% of the ex-homeowners are still renters by the end of the 4th year, falling to 30% by the end of the 10th year after exiting from homeownership.

Challenging the State: Devolutionary Tenure Transitions for Saving and Expanding Forests

I address a contentious element in forest property relations to illustrate the role of ownership in protecting and expanding of forest cover by examining the extent to which rural communities may legally own forests. The premise is that whilst state-owned protected areas have contributed enormously to forest survival, this has been insufficiently successful to justify the mass dispossession of customary land-owning communities this has entailed. Further, I argue that state co-option of community lands is unwarranted. Rural communities on all continents ably demonstrate the will and capacity to conserve forests – provided their customary ownership is legally recognized. I explore the property rights reforms now enabling this. The replication potential of community protected forestlands is great enough to deserve flagship status in global commitments to expand forest including in the upcoming new Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Intended Bequests and Housing Equity in Older Age

This paper examines how homeownership evolves in old age and around the time of death, using detailed data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to assess the extent to which housing wealth held by older Americans might be used to complement Social Security in the provision of retirement income. Critical components of the analysis include the use of rich information on medical diagnoses, functional status, and bequest intentions in a competing-risks proportional hazard model of the likelihood of making a tenure transition out of homeownership, where death is the competing risk. The paper found that: • The age profile of homeownership falls to under 10 percent among the oldest old, which in past studies has been a sufficient statistic for life-cycle behavior. • For a baseline sample of homeowners, roughly half transition to renting before death; the other half die as homeowners. • Health shock and bequest intentions play important roles in explaining why the elderly fail to spend housing wealth via tenure transitions. The policy implications of the findings are: • Along with entitlements to Social Security and employer-provided pensions, housing is the most important asset in elderly portfolios, so that housing might supplement the retirement income of future retirees. • The annual flow of housing bequests is about 4 percent of the aggregate housing value held by older Americans. • About 80 percent of aggregate housing wealth of those 62 and older may be available to support consumption in retirement net of intended bequests.

Energy-related deprivation and housing tenure transitions

Energy poverty is becoming an increasingly important policy consideration in many countries. We empirically examine the relationship between energy poverty and housing tenure in Australia using HILDA survey data over the period 2005 to 2018. We employ objective, subjective and composite measures of energy poverty and control for other respondent and household covariates. Results from our study, which are robust to a suite of checks, suggest that being energy poor has a negative impact on homeownership and “rent to own” transition, and a positive impact on “own to rent” transition. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of our study.

Neighbourhood Effects, Social Capital and Young Adults’ Homeownership Outcomes in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT Many housing researchers and policymakers assume that homeownership remains the tenure of choice for many individuals and their households in the UK and internationally. Housing affordability concerns and access to mortgage finance have taken centre stage in the debate about the declining prospects for young adults to enter homeownership. Yet, some recent studies have questioned how well we understand other factors that combine to shape housing and tenure outcomes for young adults. We specifically ask whether different combinations of neighbourhood effects, homeownership path dependency and social capital influence tenure transitions for young adults. We provide estimates using multi-level mixed-effects logistic regression models using the British Household Panel Survey 2001-15 for Great Britain. We find evidence to support the argument that these specific effects help to shape housing and tenure outcomes for young adults, albeit with socialization within the family appearing to have a stronger effect in comparison to neighbourhood socialization.

Relationships between young adults’ housing tenure, elements of perceived job security and social capital in Britain

PurposeAgainst the backdrop of the changing trends in tenure in the UK housing system, young adults are faced with different situations that continue to shape their housing consumption and decisions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships amongst young adults’ housing tenure, social capital and elements of perceived job security in Britain. Socio-psychological dimension of housing tenure decisions has been receiving attention by housing market analysts and practitioners seeking deeper understandings of the UK housing market dynamics, particularly in the wake of changing tastes and preferences of young people concerning housing decisions across major cities of the world.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative approach has been applied to the harmonised version of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from 2001 to 2015.FindingsThe authors discovered that British young adults’ homeownership decisions are increasingly influenced by social capital and elements of perceived job insecurity, depending on their tenure of origin. Furthermore, this study will significantly enhance the understanding of tenure shifts amongst young adults in the UK and provide property developers, local authorities and central governments the knowledge and information to guide economic policies, urban renewal towards achieving better social cohesion and sustainable communities.Originality/valueVery little has been done to investigate the contributions of social capital formation, for example, neighbourhood or social integration and social relations and elements of perceived job security on housing tenure transitions among British young adults. This study will further provide property developers, local authorities and central governments the knowledge and information to guide economic policies, urban renewal towards achieving better social cohesion and sustainable communities.

Contributions of path-dependency and social capital drivers to housing tenure transitions in Britain

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributions of path-dependency and some contextual social capital drivers to housing tenure transitions in Britain. Different situations have continued to shape young adults’ housing tenure decisions. However, very little research has been done to investigate the impact of some social capital drivers, such as neighbourhood integration and strength of parental intimacy, on housing tenure decisions in Britain.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is carried out by tracking a sample of young adults in the British Household Panel Survey from 1991 to 2015 until they make tenure transition. Multinomial fixed-effects logistic regression of time to tenure transition was useful for the models, incorporating established economic and demographic drivers and with the inclusion of contextual social capital variables.FindingsThe inclusion of the number of years of parental home ownership experience tends to improve on previous path-dependency indicators of tenure transition. With additional years of parental home ownership experience, British young adults are more likely to remain or return to parental housing. Also, individuals that exchange better with their neighbours are less likely to switch tenure. On the other hand, regularity of contact with parents showed a positive relationship with home ownership or parental housing transitions.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, no study has explored the impact of the duration of socialisation in parental housing and also the impact of some other social capital drivers, such as neighbourhood integration and strength of parental intimacy, on housing tenure decisions among young adults. Hence, it is believed that the findings will further assist policymakers in understanding the dimensions and drivers of tenure shifts.

Credit constraints and the delay of homeownership by young households in Japan

PurposeJapan has been suffering from a decline in the rate of young adults homeownership for a long time. The reduction of the homeownership rate for young adults suggests a delay of tenure transition from renting to owning a home. Such delays further imply that there is insufficient wealth accumulation and a low level of welfare. This paper examines these influences of the credit rationing and the credit rationing impact on the reduction in the young adults’ homeownership rate.Design/methodology/approachCredit rationing impacts the timing of house purchases and the value of the houses at the same time. This paper estimates these impacts jointly using a simultaneous equation system (minimum distance estimation) and the micro data on Japan.FindingsThis paper divides the effect of credit rationing on the timing into direct and indirect effects. The former is the rationing effect on timing, keeping the other variables constant, while the latter is the effect via changes in house values. This paper finds that the indirect effect reduces the rationing effect on the timing by decreasing house values. Furthermore, the results show that credit rationing delays home acquisition by prospective young owners (direct effect) and necessarily lowers the quality of houses they purchase.Originality/valueIn the previous papers, the endogeneity among the variables related to the housing purchase was not addressed. To separate the endogeneity of the timing from the house value, this paper applies the simultaneous equation model. Furthermore, this paper exhibits that there are direct and indirect effects of credit rationing on the timing of housing purchase made by young households. None of the previous papers recognize these two effects.

Land Tenure Transitions in the Global South: Trends, Drivers, and Policy Implications

Clouded titles to land in remote rural areas of the Global South have recently prevented increases in agricultural productivity and payments for environmental services (PES), so making land tenure more secure has become a priority for policymakers. The historical dynamics surrounding land tenure transitions suggest a strategy for reform. Colonial regimes stripped indigenous peoples of most rights to land. Newly independent states restored these rights for some smallholders through land reforms. Later, neo-liberal regimes made secure titles more expensive, and, in so doing, made insecure land tenure more pervasive. Spots of secure land tenure did emerge when indigenous groups, with outside support, resisted efforts by powerful outsiders to expropriate indigenous homelands. Because insecure land tenure persists in most forested rural areas, a focus on afforestation in deforested areas, where earlier episodes of reform secured smallholder land tenure, offers a promising direction for future PES and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) efforts.

Determinants of Tenure Choice in Japan: What Makes You a Homeowner?

Despite Japan’s highly developed housing market, little is known about the determinants of renter-to-home-owner tenure transition. Exploiting the Japanese longitudinal household data of the Keio Household Panel Survey (2004–2013), this paper aims to close this gap. Our results show that income level and increase in family size are the strongest determinants for home-ownership in Japan. We find that although both rural and urban households with higher incomes are more likely to transition to home-ownership, access in rural areas is more equally distributed over various income groups. Since most of the previous empirical studies on tenure choice pay little attention to wealth as a measure of purchasing power, possibly due to data limitation, we draw attention to it and its relative levels. We find that household wealth levels matter, particularly in urban areas, whereas in rural areas home-ownership is more equally distributed. Nonetheless, given the relatively low levels of household wealth among renters, our results suggest that income is a more important determinant of successful tenure transition.

Wellbeing at the edges of ownership

The test of a well-functioning housing system is the wellbeing of its occupants. It may therefore seem encouraging that in jurisdictions dominated by mortgage-backed home ownership, owner-occupiers traditionally report better physical and mental health than renters. During the 2000s, however, in an era of financial crisis, wellbeing at the edges of ownership came under strain. Using data from two national panel surveys – the survey of Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia, and the British Household Panel Survey (with its successor, Understanding Society) – we track the wellbeing of households who sustained one or more spells of home ownership in the decade to 2010. We estimate log-log regression models of mental wellbeing for each country, documenting (with an appropriate range of controls) the effects of both tenure transitions (between ownership and renting) and some associated financial transactions (anchored on mortgage debt). We find: a wellbeing premium associated with outright ownership and a debt-effect among mortgagors; a wellbeing deficit among those who drop out of owner-occupation, with partial recovery where exit is enduring; and for leavers especially, a wellbeing cost to equity borrowing. Cross-national differences have an institutional explanation, but similarities relating to the character and regulation of mortgage markets are more striking.

Reasserting the commons: Pastoral contestations of private and state lands in East Africa

The theory that land holding is inexorably evolving from common to private or state tenure is challenged by facts on the ground that this paper will examine. ‘Tenure’ is interpreted both in terms of formal law and informal practices. While the association between privatization and land fragmentation is clear, property theory has influenced privatization so the process cannot be used to validate the evolutionary model of transitions from open access to common property to private property. Although in many settings common and state property has given way to privatization, in other cases private or state property has reverted to common holdings. A dynamic tenure model would demonstrate the conditions under which tenure transitions occur between common, private and state property, as the balance between transaction and exclusion costs shifts, or when the boundaries of tenure forms weaken to allow open access to occur. Examining three scenes of tenure transitions involving Kenyan pastoralists (Laikipia County, the Rift Valley, Narok County and Kajiado County), this paper examines cases in which transaction and exclusion dynamics – which are metaphors for the institutional effects of social and territorial relations- lead to changing land-use practices and tenure transitions. In semi-arid pastoral regions, we find more fluid systems of tenure than the inexorable spread of privatization through formalized land rights and increasing land fragmentation would have suggested should occur in the 21st century.

Boomeranged! The Effect of Coresiding Adult Children on Housing Transitions Among Older Homeowners

This paper presents new evidence of a causal link between coresiding adult children and housing transitions among older homeowners in the U.S. Estimates from OLS and IV models indicate the effects are relatively large in magnitude. For example, a one-child increase in the number of adult child coresidents over the two year period of observation is estimated to reduce the probability of becoming a renter by roughly 1 to 2 percentage points, or 40 to 60 percent of the mean tenure transition rate among homeowners in the sample. Effects on probability of moving to a smaller home (i.e. downsizing) are similar in magnitude.

Exploring the ‘middle ground’ between state and market: the example of China

Studies of housing systems lying in the ‘middle ground’ between state and market are subject to three important shortcomings. First, the widely used Esping-Andersen (EA) approach assesses only a subset of the key housing outcomes and may be less helpful for describing changes in housing policy regimes. Second, there is too much emphasis on tenure transitions, and an assumed close correspondence between tenure labels and effective system functioning may not be valid. Third, due attention has not been given to the spatial dimensions in which housing systems operate, in particular when housing policies have a significant devolved or localised emphasis. Updating EA’s framework, we suggest a preliminary list of housing system indicators in order to capture the nature of the housing systems being developed and devolved. We verified the applicability of this indicator system with the case of China. This illustrates clearly the need for a more nuanced and systematic basis for categorising differences and changes in welfare and housing policies.