Urban Housing Market Research Articles

A Disaggregate Residential Equilibrium Assignment Model

This paper presents a set of hypotheses and a mathematical formulation in order to model the equilibrium between supply and demand on an urban housing market. Housing supply is assumed to be price-elastic, in a way that can vary for each location and each dwelling type. Household housing demand is disaggregated on the basis of employment area, category of activity, income and household size. The market equilibrium is characterized by a set of primal-dual conditions, then by a variational inequality whose continuity guarantees the existence of an equilibrium. In the monocentric case, the primal-dual conditions are the saddle point conditions of a constrained maximization program the concavity of which implies the uniqueness of the equilibrium. We propose a resolution algorithm that is derived from traffic assignment on a transportation network. Last, we explore the outcomes of the model in a demonstration application and analyze the sensitivity of the equilibrium to our supply and demand hypotheses.

The Maturation of the Neo-liberal Housing Market in Urban China

Neo-liberalism has dominated policy formulation and implementation for three decades and been influential in reshaping urban housing provision in different countries. However, the nature and impact of neo-liberal housing policy developments are also affected by previous arrangements, the exact nature, timing and pace of policy change and by how governments and markets have responded to emerging global and local challenges. This paper examines neo-liberal urban housing reform and market development in China and focuses on market performance and government responses following initial reform. The era of neo-liberal housing policy has been associated with turbulence, market changes and unequal housing and asset distribution. Housing reform and regulation policies have changed frequently in response; and this maturation of the neo-liberal system has important implications for policy and the structure and operation of the market.

Spatial Interactions in Hedonic Pricing Models: The Urban Housing Market of Aveiro, Portugal

Spatial heterogeneity, spatial dependence and spatial scale constitute key features of spatial analysis of housing markets. However, the common practice of modelling spatial dependence as being generated by spatial interactions through a known spatial weights matrix is often not satisfactory. While existing estimators of spatial weights matrices are based on repeat sales or panel data, this paper takes the approach to a cross-section setting. Specifically, based on an a priori definition of housing submarkets and the assumption of a multifactor model, we develop maximum likelihood methodology to estimate hedonic models that facilitate understanding of both spatial heterogeneity and spatial interactions. The methodology, based on statistical orthogonal factor analysis, applied to the urban housing market of Aveiro (Portugal) at two different spatial scales, provides exciting inferences on the spatial structure of the housing market. RÉSUMÉ L'hétérogénéité spatiale, la dépendance spatiale et l’échelle spatiale sont des caractéristiques clé de l'analyse spatiale dans les marchés de l'immobilier. Toutefois, la pratique habituelle de la modélisation de la dépendance spatiale comme étant le résultat d'interactions spatiales par le biais d'une matrice de poids spatiaux n'est souvent pas satisfaisante. Alors que les estimateurs existants des matrices de poids spatiaux sont basés sur des données de panel ou des ventes répétées, la présente communication adopte le principe d'un cadre transversal. Plus spécifiquement, sur la base d'une définition à priori des sub-marchés de l'immobilier, et de l'hypothèse d'un modèle multifactoriel, nous créons une méthodologie de probabilité maximale pour estimer des modèles hédoniques qui facilitent les connaissances de l'hétérogénéité spatiale et des interactions spatiales. Cette méthodologie, basée sur une analyse des facteurs orthogonaux, appliquée au secteur de l'immobilier urbain à Aveiro (Portugal) à deux échelles spatiales différentes, fournit des inférences excitantes en ce qui concerne la structure spatiale du secteur de l'immobilier. EXTRACTO La heterogeneidad, dependencia y escala espaciales constituyen características clave del análisis espacial de los mercados de la vivienda. No obstante, la práctica común de modelar la dependencia espacial como algo generado por interacciones espaciales a través de una matriz conocida de pesos espaciales, a menudo, no es satisfactoria. Aunque los estimadores existentes de matrices de pesos espaciales se basan en ventas repetidas o datos de panel, este estudio lleva el planteamiento a un marco de corte transversal. Específicamente, basados en una definición a priori de los submercados de la vivienda y en la presuposición de un modelo de múltiples factores, desarrollamos una metodología de probabilidad máxima para estimar modelos hedónicos, que facilita la comprensión de la heterogeneidad espacial y las interacciones espaciales. La metodología, basada en el análisis estadístico de factores ortogonales y aplicada al mercado de la vivienda urbana de Aveiro (Portugal) en dos escalas espaciales diferentes, proporciona interesantes inferencias sobre la estructura espacial del mercado de la vivienda.

Racial and ethnic price differentials in a small urban housing market

This article examines whether the presence of blacks and Hispanics has a negative impact on prices in a small urban housing market in the US. To alleviate estimation biases associated with unobserved neighborhood heterogeneity, we focus on housing price differences across micro-neighborhoods in the small and relatively homogeneous city of Kingston, New York, introduce GIS-based spatial amenity variables as controls, and account for clustered errors, neighborhood fixed effects, spatial errors and spatial lags. Our results, with the exception of the spatial error model, conform with the consensus reached primarily from studies of large cities that the presence of blacks in a neighborhood is associated with lower housing prices and that the impact of the presence of Hispanics is considerably weaker. The spatial error model yields weaker and statistically insignificant results for blacks, providing some evidence that price discounts in relatively black neighborhoods may be caused not by preferences for segregation but by the correlation of race and the quality of neighborhood amenities.

Puzzling Patterns in Neighborhood Change: Upgrading and Downgrading in Highly Regulated Urban Housing Markets

This study disentangles the relationship between income and real estate value development in Dutch urban neighborhoods. Within the literature on upgrading and downgrading, it is often assumed that neighborhood income and real estate value development are strongly linked. The results reported here—based on research in Amsterdam, The Hague, and Tilburg—indicate that income and real estate values develop simultaneously in only a relatively small number of neighborhoods, which are at the top and bottom of the housing market hierarchy. The majority reveal a more complex relationship: a number of neighborhoods show a time lag between the trends, whereas in other neighborhoods income and real estate values show partially diverging trends. Several tentative explanations are offered for the complex relationship, and stress the importance of place-specific knowledge. Three points of attention are suggested for further research: understanding the role of household dynamics, the position of neighborhoods within their urban system, and the role of the state and housing associations in neighborhood change.

The Spatial Extent of Water Quality Benefits in Urban Housing Markets

Water quality regulation continues to be controversial, as demonstrated by recent litigation between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Florida over nutrient standards. While the costs of standards are usually known, benefits may be diverse and difficult to identify. This study investigates the effects of enhanced water quality on both waterfront and nonwaterfront property prices, using hedonic models within an urban market. Findings indicate (1) the value of increased water quality depends upon the property’s location and proximity to waterfront, and the surface area of the water body; and (2) aggregate benefits to nonwaterfront homes may dominate those realized by waterfront homeowners. <i>(JEL Q51, Q53)</i>

A Study on Warning Limit of Urban Housing Market

It had been a key point and a tough work to verify the warning limit of urban housing market for those who research the housing market. The warning limit of domestic housing market was based on the change rate of its own indicator. It deviated from the changing trend, and diverged from the real feeling of our people. This research adopted systematized method and signal light system, and Taichung City was selected for a case study. The research result showed that it was practicable to apply the systematized method to researching warning limit of urban housing market. Therefore, it was suggested that the systematized method should be used as an auxiliary method on researching the warning limit of urban housing market so that the early warning function of urban housing market could be perfect.

The Pull Factors of Intra-Urban Residential Mobility in Calabar, Nigeria

The paper takes a critical look at the push factors of intra-urban residential mobility in Calabar. Push factors are defined as those which operate to induce or encourage households to change their residence in the city. The paper notes that changing of residence by urban households in Western cities is a common experience. But in cities of the developing countries, it is rare because of severe handicap imposed by limited stock of housing. Twelve push factors were identified as being very crucial in the analysis. They include dislike for housing occupied, dislike for type of people in the neighbourhood, family composition, eviction notice, house rent, etc. The objective of the paper was to establish the relative importance of these twelve factors and find their underlying dimensions. Data were extracted from a questionnaire survey of 874 random sample of urban households in Calabar, in which 471 households were seen to have moved at least, once. The data were subjected to Principal Component Analysis. Five components were extracted; force or eviction, neighbours, house-type, exterior appearance of dwelling, and family composition. The paper concludes that public agencies must take into consideration these maladies in the urban housing market.

Preferential size of housing in Beijing

As the result of rapid and incomplete transition from a planned economy to a market one, urban housing market has been seriously distorted in China. In order to ensure the appropriate supply of housing, housing size regulations have to be established, which necessitates good knowledge on the preferential size of housing. This paper proposed an empirical framework to identify the preferential size of housing perceived by people. A hedonic approach was adopted to analyze the willingness of urban households to pay for the size of their accommodations. With the transaction price data of second-hand apartments in Beijing, the marginal benefits of urban households in relation to housing size were investigated, which revealed that 50–60 m 2 and 80–190 m 2 (including shared public space) were more highly valued than other sizes of apartment housing in Beijing. Further examinations of the market balance of supply and demand as well as the impact of bubble effect on market conditions demonstrated that the results were reliable. Based on the implications of the results, suggestions were made for the implementation of housing size regulation and relevant policies.

‘Gentrifying the re‐urbanisation debate’, not vice versa: the uneven socio‐spatial implications of changing transitions to adulthood in Brussels

AbstractThis paper challenges recent views of the sociospatial transformations of inner‐city neighbourhoods as ‘reurbanisation’, for, it is argued, such views tend to divorce the demographic dimensions of the processes at play from their contrasted social class meanings and implications. In addition, it argues that the ongoing demographic diversification of inner cities in the Western world do not stand for the obsolescence of gentrification as a key concept for understanding sociospatial transformations in these places, but rather that this trend alerts to a need to complement existing interpretations of gentrification with new insights into its demographic underpinnings. This point is illustrated via an exploration of the implications of contemporary changes in transition to adulthood for urban sociospatial structures and housing market dynamics in Brussels. Findings stress that the rapid rise of middle‐class young adults in non‐family households in Brussels' inner neighbourhoods brings about the reinvestment of the existing private rental market, fuelling in turn a process of rental gentrification. Such process exacerbates the competition for residential space in the city, being strongly detrimental to low‐income, working‐class households. The paper concludes that notwithstanding all local specifics, everywhere at stake is the need to keep a clear sense of the multiple social class stratifications of demographic change in inner neighbourhoods. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

The Globalization of Urban Housing Markets: Immigration and Changing Housing Demand in Vancouver

The effect of residential capital through immigration on the internal structure of cities and housing markets has become of increasing importance. This study examines the effects of immigration on Vancouver's residential housing market as the city became increasingly influenced by global processes and the arrival of skilled and wealthy migrants. The changing determinants of housing demand are analyzed for recent immigrants and the rest of the population using Statistics Canada data for two time periods. Intraurban spatial dimensions of the changes in housing demand are examined using tract data. The analysis reveals a de-coupling of local housing from labour markets as recent immigrants' housing consumption became less tied to their local labor market participation. Labor market income measured in national datasets becomes less instructive in explaining housing market outcomes and neighborhood change if immigrants arrive with established wealth and continue to earn unreported income outside the country.

Immigration and urban housing market dynamics: the case of Haifa

This paper addresses the interplay between demographics and housing market dynamics in Haifa, Israel. In the 1990s the city of Haifa, with a population of approximately 220,000, absorbed about 45,000 immigrants. The case of Haifa offers a typical non-controlled experiment on how demographic shocks and associated changes in housing demand affect the housing market. The dynamic adjustment of house prices is estimated using an autoregressive, distributed lag ADL model, taking into account spatial spillover effects. The data analyzed cover housing transactions in Haifa between January 1989 and June 1999. The data come from a mortgage database. We used a house price index by tract and by year to investigate the impact of immigration on house price dynamics for a balanced panel of 34 tracts and 11 years. Tests showed that for some of the tracts house price series are not unit root. Most individual series though indicated that a unit root could not be rejected so that we considered house price series as being non-stationary. Also, the hypothesis of no co-integration could not be rejected by the data. Due to inertia we considered lagged spatial spillover effects for the dependent variable. We applied the corrected least squares dummy variable estimator to estimate the parameters of interest. The estimates of the coefficient of the lagged dependent variable suggest stability of the ADL structure. Furthermore, the results indicate a house price correction of almost 70% of the gap between house prices and its fundamental determinants each year. Our results suggest a substantially faster response after the demand shock in Haifa than obtained by others for other cities and regions in the literature. Yet our estimates seem not unreasonable given the large-scale land conversion and urban construction programs in Israel and underline the importance of a responsive supply to dampen house price rises after an unanticipated demographic shock.

When Universal and Legally Secured Property Rights are not Necessary for Market Growth: The Politics and Reality of Chinese Urban Redevelopment 2002–2005

This study uses developments in China's urban housing market from 2002 to 2005 to engage with a hypothesis drawn from the Rule of Law discourse, that secure property rights across market participants are necessary for effective market growth. This particular market has been characterized by both significant demand-side growth and weak property rights for private home owners, contradicting the hypothesis. There are various theoretical objections to this hypothesis, but by focusing on a specific market, I isolate key factors to rephrase the hypothesis, emphasising pragmatism and structural market predictability as a substitute for formal and universal property rights. Indeed, formally weak property rights may in this instance have been a partial and temporary driver of market growth.

Racial Preferences in a Small Urban Housing Market: A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Microneighborhoods in Kingston, New York

This paper use spatial econometric models to test for racial preferences in a small urban housing market. Identifying racial preferences is difficult when unobserved neighborhood amenities vary systematically with racial composition. We adopt three strategies to redress this problem: (1) we focus on housing price differences across microneighborhoods in the small and relatively homogenous city of Kingston, New York; (2) we introduce GIS-based spatial amenity variables as controls in the hedonic regressions; and (3) we use spatial error and lag models to explicitly account for the spatial dependence of unobserved neighborhood amenities. Our simple OLS estimates agree with the consensus in the literature that black neighborhoods have lower housing prices. However, racial price discounts are no longer significant when we account for the spatial dependence of errors. Our results suggest that price discounts in black neighborhoods are caused not by racial preferences but by the demand for amenities that are typically not found in black neighborhoods.

The Impact of Land Supply on Housing Affordability in the Perth Metropolitan Region

A number of commentators and policy makers believe that a potential solution to housing affordability is available through large scale release of newly subdivided land on the urban periphery. The argument follows that releasing more land increases supply and, through market forces, leads to lower new land and house prices. This will, in turn, lead to improved affordability within the stock of existing houses. Despite this view, there has been very little empirical research investigating how large scale land release on the urban fringe actually affects housing affordability. This question has important implications for both planning policy and affordability within local housing markets, but also within the wider aggregate urban housing market. This paper explores this issue by quantifying land release in a number of Perth (Western Australia) Metropolitan suburbs and comparing the extent of land release with changes in land and house prices. Our analysis indicates only a weak relationship between land supply and rates of house price growth, concluding that the drivers of housing affordability are far more complex than the single issue of land release.

VIVIENDA SOCIAL EN ALTURA: ANTECEDENTES Y CARACTERÍSTICAS DE PRODUCCIÓN EN BOGOTÁ

Given the different questioning about the appropriateness of the production of high rise social housing buildings, the present research presents a state ofart hy drawing a historical line that characterizes State produced multifamily economic housing and private investment and its qualitative properties. The analysis includes ICMA approaches and its application in Latin America and specifically the case of Bogota, from State production to housing market consolidation during the 1990s. In this sense, the urban impacts of economic multifamily housing on the compact city model carried out in Bogota are identifed, as well as its relation with land use policy. In this case, the value of urban land and housing market dynamics defined by a privileged location determine the quality and accessibility to Social Interest Housing (VIS). To that effect, projects across the city are identified, both built by the State and subsidized. To finish, considerations for applications in the city are proposed according research and theories about application of high densities and high rise social housing.

Urban Land and Housing Markets in the Punjab, Pakistan

Well-functioning urban land and housing markets are critical success factors for achieving robust economic growth. This paper provides an overview of urban land and housing market performance in Punjab Province of Pakistan. It describes the characteristics of well-functioning markets and argues that the Punjab’s present markets are not performing adequately. In fact, there exists a range of impediments to efficient urban land and housing market performance: excessive public land ownership, inadequate infrastructure services, weak property rights, pervasive public- and private-sector rent seeking, counter-productive urban planning policies and regulations, costly sub-division and construction regulations, limited financing for property development and acquisition, rent controls and inadequate property-tax-based revenue-generating mechanisms. The paper concludes by suggesting that a prioritised comprehensive reform agenda is needed to improve urban land and housing market performance in Punjab Province. The analytical and conceptual approach used to research this paper is based on standard neo-classical economics. Therefore, the paper does not address broader political economy or structural issues. Consequently, the paper’s contribution should be viewed as limited in scope.

Longing for Stillness: The Forced Movement of Asylum Seekers

Longing for Stillness: The Forced Movement of Asylum Seekers

The Privatization of Urban Housing in China and its Contribution to Financial System Development

The privatization of urban housing and the subsequent development of a mortgage market have played a major role in the development of China's financial system. This paper explores the history and development of China's urban housing market, its impact on the financial system, and the government's efforts to grapple with new issues that have surfaced alongside these reforms. This paper concludes that although housing privatization has helped strengthen the financial standing of state-owned enterprises, urban residents, and commercial banks alike, systematic weaknesses must be addressed in order to promote sustainable economic growth.

Urban Housing Policy in China in the Macro-regulation Period 2004–2007

Since 2004, China's housing policy has entered into an adjustment period. The central government tries to take macro measures to regulate the urban housing market, with the purpose of enhancing long-term housing development and cooling down the overheated economy, which was partly caused by buoyant housing market activities. Local governments are also required to strengthen the security of housing. Thus, housing supply by both the market and government is to be integrated to meet the housing needs of urban citizens, and to guarantee low-income and some special urban groups' residential rights. This paper firstly gives a brief review of the development and transformation of the Chinese urban housing market and policies from 1998 to 2007, and then it analyses the urban housing policies formulated during the period of macro-economy adjustment from 2004 to 2007, including policy targets, preliminary policy effects and possible policy deficiency.