Essays examining aspects of the UK residential property market

This thesis contains five essays addressing a variety of topics relating to aspects of the UK residential property market. The first essay examines the long run drivers of real residential house prices, and then seeks to develop a short run error correction model to examine the adjustment of real house prices to their long run equilibrium vales. The second essay, examines the extent to which the introduction of a congestion charge in London, and the associated improvement in environmental amenity is capitalised into residential property prices. The third essay and fourth essays focus on the extent to which high performing schools create a neighborhood amenity that is capitalised into residential property prices. The third essay examines this relationship in seven major English cities. Essay four focuses on London and Bristol, two UK cities with significant differences in the average performance of their secondary schools. This paper highlights the extent to which a greater premium for good schools exists in cities where the supply of good schools is low. The fifth essay examines the factors that influence the level of mortgage arrears in the UK housing market. A long run co-integrating vector is estimated and a short run error correction model describes the way in which short run arrears adjust to their long run equilibrium values.