Housing Affordability

There is a print copy available of this book for checkout, and another on Open Reserve on the third floor for use in the library

This book is available for both checkout in print and online

This book is available online through the library

This book is available online through the library.

This is available online

This book is available in print and online through the library.

Available in print through the library.

Despite the conventional wisdom that affordable housing, either in the form of homeownership or through access to rental units, has beneficial effects for households, society, and the economy more broadly, there is a noteworthy lack of empirical studies of housing development and construction companies or building societies that actively work to supply this asset class in the economy. There are several reasons for this condition, including the "thin market" for such business activities. This book offers a case study that includes two Swedish housing development companies that have targeted a market niche for affordable homes that few other companies and market actors are concerned with. One company is part of a major construction company conglomerate which produces prefabricated housing modules to better serve the low-end niche of the housing market. The other company is a municipality-owned housing development company that acts on the basis of market practices and rules but that also on policymakers' stated ambition to provide affordable homes for the residents in the municipality, the largest municipality in a major Swedish metropolitan area. Taken together, the study of these two companies provides first-hand insights into how the production of affordable homes takes place in a real-world economy. The book is of relevance for a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policymakers, and management consultants.

The economic system of competitive capitalism has proven to be both resilient and flexible over time and has contributed to the economic welfare of citizens in liberal and coordinated market economies in diverse regions and countries. At the same time, over the entire post-World War II period, there has been a notable endemic shortage of affordable housing in many advanced economies. This book points at both the causes and the consequences of this circumstance and provides an integrated economic and legal view of how housing production is dependent on housing finance, which, in turn, means that legal conditions and the sovereign state play an active role. Further, the book contributes to the literature from two otherwise partially separated disciplines - housing and urban development studies on the one hand and the institutional centrality of the finance industry in the contemporary economic system on the other. The author asserts that although somewhat assimilated due to the ambitions of policy makers to optimize social and economic welfare for their constituencies, the combining of these two realms of expertise generates many favourable outcomes, but also some costs derived from finance industry instabilities. The book connects theoretical perspectives and provides an empirical explanation for how affordable housing is generated in an actual real world economy context. The book will be relevant to the work of a number of academic disciplines including economics, government studies, housing policy and urban planning, social geography and law and society.

For many younger and lower-income people, housing affordability continues to worsen. Based on the academic research of two distinguished housing economists - and stimulated by working with governments across the world - this wide-ranging book sets out clear theoretical and empirical frameworks to tackle one of today's most important socio-economic issues. Housing unaffordability arises from complex forces and a prerequisite to effective policy is understanding the causes of rising house prices and rents and the interactions between housing, housing finance and the macroeconomy. The authors challenge many of the conventional wisdoms in housing policy and offer innovative recommendations to improve affordability.