This text deals with the topic of housing shortage vs. residential vacancy – housing market intervention as a task of politics? At the beginning there will be some basic assertions on the relation of market vs. state, especially bearing in mind, the overall importance and social responsibility...

There are four major challenges for housing policy in the near and midterm future: First, rents in many German conurbations have been rising significantly faster than incomes over the last five years. Though it can rightly be argued, that the suggested policies of the new German federal...

The regional differences in the housing markets are enormous and will continue to exacerbate in the future. The main task for the housing policy is to take appropriate long term measures depending on the market structure. A central aspect of future housing policy is the site development....

Foreclosure procedures in some states are considerably swifter and less costly for lenders than in others. In light of the foreclosure crisis, an empirical understanding of the effect of foreclosure procedures on the mortgage market is critical. This study finds that lender-favorable foreclosure...

In the article we discuss importance of the real estate related instruments, used by local government to attract investment and stimulate local economic development. The article discusses economic literature related to public economics at local government level, with the special emphasis put on...

DISCLAIMER: This Staff Discussion Note represents the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent IMF views or IMF policy. The views expressed herein should be attributed to the authors and not to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management. Staff Discussion Notes are published...

Much has been written identifying property price effects of historic preservation policies. Little attention has been paid to the possible policy endogeneity in hedonic price models. This paper outlines a general case of land use regulation in the presence of externalities and then demonstrates...

Following a hedonic framework, this paper constructs various transaction-based commercial property price indicators for the Netherlands. Using quarterly data from the Investment Property Databank (IPD), the analysis covers a total of 10,000 listed properties over the period 2001-2011. The study...

This paper investigates the effect of eco-labeling on the occupancy rates of commercial offices in the US. The occupancy rates of LEED and Energy Star labeled offices are compared to a sample of non-labeled offices which were selected to include properties in the same submarkets. Significant...