Despite a recent expansion in housing finance, Brazil still faces a severe housing shortage, especially among lower-income people, and it is important to examine the development, limitations and prospects of the country`s housing finance market. This paper investigates the recent evolution of...

In the last three decades, the supply of housing in Argentina has not kept pace with demand. This study analyzes the main drivers of Argentina’s housing market and relates them to the macroeconomic environment in order to advance a policy agenda for housing policy reform. The demand for...

Given the numerous and widely acknowledged benefits of a well-functioning housing market, it is vital to understand the degree of competition in that market, which is the starting point for undertaking any policy tool aimed at improving its efficiency. This paper tests the extent of competition...

Israeli house prices have risen by over 50% over the past three years. In part this reflects the fact that for several years housing construction had not kept pace with increases in the number of households. In response to these developments, hitherto sluggish planning-approval processes are...

This paper explores the role played by policy instruments in access to housing finance by low-income households. It also analyzes the impact of housing credit and subsidies on both the quality of life and the quality of dwelling of the beneficiaries. Using the Quality of Life Surveys conducted...

Le développement économique et le processus de métropolisation au Luxembourg engendrent une pression démographique importante sur les marchés résidentiels transfrontaliers. Cette pression est à son tour exacerbée par les différentiels frontaliers en termes de prix du foncier et de...

This paper introduces series of house and land prices for Australia’s major capital cities for the period 1880-1970 which, spliced to modern data, give series spanning 1880-2010. The broad trends in prices for houses, land and rents highlight no significant movement in real prices for the...

This paper explores the practice of mortgage refinancing in a dynamic competitive lending model with risky borrowers and costly default. We show that prepayment penalties improve welfare by ensuring longer-term lending contracts, which prevents the mortgage pools from becoming disproportionately...

The Singapore housing market is unusual in its high homeownership rate, the dominance of HDB housing, and the extensive intervention of the government in regulating housing supply and demand in both the HDB and private housing sectors. Recent rapid population increases in a low interest rate and...

We estimate the effect of the UK Stamp Duty Land Tax on household mobility using micro data. Exploiting a discontinuity in the tax schedule as a quasiexperimental setting, we isolate the impact of the stamp duty from other determinants of mobility. We compare homeowners with self-assessed house...