An article examined household considerations about building and consuming housing equity in Germany, Hungary, and the United Kingdom. Based on empirical qualitative data, it presented an analysis of the potential role of housing assets as a solution for financial hardship.
Source: Janneke Toussaint, 'Housing assets as a potential solution for financial hardship: households? mental accounts of housing wealth in three European countries', Housing, Theory and Society, Volume 28 Issue 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Dec
An article examined home-ownership through a case study of the English model of shared ownership. Shared ownership showed the limitations of two dichotomies commonly used in housing discourse: that between private and social housing; and the classification of tenure between owner-occupiers and renters. A much more nuanced way of referring to home-ownership was required, and there was a need for a change of expectations among consumers as to what sharing ownership meant.
Source: Susan Bright and Nicholas Hopkins, 'Home, meaning and identity: learning from the English model of shared ownership', Housing, Theory and Society, Volume 28 Issue 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Dec
The coalition government published a call for evidence on its plans for altering the help provided towards mortgage interest payments for working-age and pensioner home-owners.
Source: Support for Mortgage Interest: Informal Call for Evidence, Department for Work and Pensions
Links: Call for evidence
Date: 2011-Dec
An article said that the 'Right to Buy' programme (involving the discounted selling of council and social housing) had obscured inequalities inherent in democratization via property ownership. It highlighted the vulnerability of Right to Buy lessees and their successors in title. The promise of inclusion via home-ownership was more conditional than generally recognized, in some cases impoverishing rather than enriching.
Source: Helen Carr, 'The Right to Buy, the leaseholder, and the impoverishment of ownership', Journal of Law and Society, Volume 38 Number 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Dec
The financial services watchdog proposed new guidelines designed to prevent a recurrence of 'irresponsible' lending that had resulted in some borrowers taking on mortgages that only seemed affordable on the assumption that house prices would always rise. Mortgages and loans should only be advanced where there was a 'reasonable expectation' that the customer could repay without relying on uncertain future house price rises.
Source: Mortgage Market Review: Proposed Package of Reforms, Financial Services Authority
Links: Consultation document | FSA press release | BSA press release | CML press release | PwC press release | Shelter press release | BBC report | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2011-Dec
An article examined attitudes to home and tenure among the owners of low-cost homes in Scotland.
Source: Kim McKee, 'Challenging the norm? The "ethopolitics" of low-cost homeownership in Scotland', Urban Studies, Volume 48 Number 16
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Dec
An article examined the impact of income uncertainty, in the form of unemployment risk, on home ownership. There was a strong role for unemployment risk in lowering the likelihood of house purchase: but there was no statistically significant role for house price risk.
Source: John Gathergood, 'Unemployment risk, house price risk and the transition into home ownership in the United Kingdom', Journal of Housing Economics, Volume 20 Issue 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Sep
A study examined ways in which borrowers with unsustainable mortgages could be helped to make the transition from ownership to renting, including help with selling their property on a voluntary basis. Assisted voluntary sales schemes could be effective in delivering better outcomes for borrowers and lenders than possessions: but significant obstacles needed to be overcome for these schemes to be more widely adopted and to fulfil their potential.
Source: Alison Wallace, Deborah Quilgars, and Janet Ford, Exiting Unsustainable Homeownership: Understanding current practice and the potential of assisted voluntary sales, Shelter
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Sep
An article examined the robustness of the housing finance system – not only in the context of the existing crisis, but also in comparison with earlier crises. The prime objective of the mortgage market – supporting sustainable owner-occupation – had been undermined as first-time buyers had found it more and more difficult to obtain mortgage funding.
Source: Kathleen Scanlon and Christine Whitehead, 'The UK mortgage market: responding to volatility', Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, Volume 26 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Sep
A think-tank report said that low-to-middle income households were likely to be shut out of home-ownership for a lifetime, because of high average first-time buyer house prices and more restricted loan-to-value mortgage advances. It proposed a new approach to build-to-let housing, involving close partnerships between local authorities, institutional investors, developers, and landlords.
Source: Vidhya Alakeson, Making a Rented House a Home: Housing solutions for generation rent , Resolution Foundation
Links: Report | Resolution Foundation press release
Date: 2011-Aug
An article examined international migration and housing demand, and the extent of differences in demand and access to home-ownership across international migrant groups. There were differences in home-ownership attainment that might be related to ethno-cultural differences, or to unobserved wealth effects and mortgage market institutional factors.
Source: Christian Nygaard, 'International migration, housing demand and access to homeownership in the UK', Urban Studies, Volume 48 Number 11
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Aug
A paper said that immigration had a negative effect on house prices. This was because members of the native population tended to respond to immigration by moving to different areas, and those who left were at the top of the wage distribution.
Source: Filipa Sa, Immigration and House Prices in the UK, Discussion Paper 5893, Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn)
Links: Paper
Date: 2011-Aug
A report said that the proportion of people in England living in owner-occupied homes would fall from a peak of 72.5 per cent in 2001 to 63.8 per cent in 2021.
Source: Oxford Economics, Housing Market Analysis: July 2011, National Housing Federation
Links: Report | NHF press release | CIH press release | Labour Party press release | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2011-Aug
A trade union report said that the sharp distinctions that policy-makers drew between those who owned their homes and those who rented them made for bad policy. The 'false hierarchy' failed to acknowledge that many owner-occupiers were trapped in areas with weak labour markets and faced excessive liabilities.
Source: James Gregory, Can Housing Work for Workers?, Trades Union Congress
Links: Report | TUC press release
Date: 2011-Jul
A think-tank report examined the causes and implications of falling home ownership levels, and the corresponding growth of the private rented sector in England. The government should accept that home ownership levels would continue to fall and should plan accordingly to promote the supply of rented property.
Source: Andrew Heywood, The End of the Affair: Implications of declining home ownership, Smith Institute
Links: Report | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2011-Jun
A report examined the potential for harmonizing the consumer protection regime in mortgage lending in the European Union.
Source: Hans-Joachim Dubel and Marc Rothemund, A New Mortgage Credit Regime for Europe: Setting the right priorities, Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels)
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Jun
A study examined what measures could be taken to reduce housing market volatility. It made a series of recommendations designed to help create a more stable market, protect existing home owners, and enable more new households to climb on the property ladder.
Source: Mark Stephens, Tackling Housing Market Volatility in the UK, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Links: Report | Findings | JRF press release
Date: 2011-May
A survey examined the attitudes and behaviour of young people (aged 20 to 45) toward home-ownership. 77 per cent of all non-home-owners aspired to owning their own home: but 64 per cent of them believed that they had 'no prospect whatsoever' of ever doing so.
Source: Alison Blackwell and Alison Park, The Reality of Generation Rent: Perceptions of the first time buyer market, Halifax Building Society
Links: Report | Halifax press release | NatCen press release | BBC report | Guardian report | Inside Housing report | Telegraph report
Date: 2011-May
Researchers examined the responses of key stakeholders to the temporary arrangements (made in 2009 and 2010) for support for mortgage interest (SMI). The measures were found to have been 'generally highly effective'. As a result of the changes some borrowers avoided arrears, while others accumulated arrears more slowly. The SMI changes underpinned lenders' willingness, and ability, to forbear and not seek possession. Lenders were more prepared to consider conversion to interest-only mortgages, thus ensuring the maximum impact of SMI.
Source: Janet Ford, Alison Wallace, Moira Munro, Nigel Sprigings, and Susan Smith, An Evaluation of the January 2009 and October 2010 Arrangements for Support for Mortgage Interest: The role of lenders, money advice services, Jobcentre Plus and policy stakeholders, Research Report 740, Department for Work and Pensions
Links: Report | Summary | DWP press release
Date: 2011-May
An audit report said that the mortgage rescue scheme (2009) had achieved fewer than one-half of the rescues expected. The scheme had directly helped 2,600 households to avoid repossession and homelessness, at a cost of in excess of £240 million: but it had originally been expected to help 6,000 households for £205 million. The government had not adequately tested the assumptions underpinning the scheme s business case, and could have acted earlier to improve value for money.
Source: The Mortgage Rescue Scheme, HC 1030 (Session 2010-2012), National Audit Office, TSO
Links: Report | NAO press release | DCLG press release | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2011-May
A think-tank report said that homebuyers should be legally required to put down a minimum 10 per cent deposit, and borrow no more than three and a half times their income, when purchasing a property if another damaging 'boom-bust' economic cycle were to be avoided.
Source: Tony Dolphin and Matt Griffith, Forever Blowing Bubbles? Housing's role in the UK economy, Institute for Public Policy Research
Links: Report | Guardian report
Date: 2011-May
A briefing paper examined the various government assistance schemes designed to improve access to home ownership.
Source: Wendy Wilson, Extending Home Ownership – Government Initiatives, Standard Note SN/SP/3668, House of Commons Library
Links: Briefing paper
Date: 2011-Apr
The European Commission published a paper that examined the interactions between housing tax provisions and the 2008 financial crisis. In particular, it reviewed the existing evidence on the links between capital gains taxation of houses, interest mortgage deductibility, and characteristics of the crisis.
Source: Thomas Hemmelgarn, Gaetan Nicodeme, and Ernesto Zangari, The Role of Housing Tax Provisions in the 2008 Financial Crisis, Taxation Working Paper 27, European Commission
Links: Paper
Date: 2011-Mar
A study examined local housing market volatility. The experience of volatility disproportionately affected more deprived areas – raising doubts over the wisdom of subverting market renewal in low-demand areas. There was a role for regional demand-side policies, and for more sophisticated spatial frameworks for understanding the operation of the housing market. Policies that sought to mitigate housing market volatility required strategic co-ordination at a high level.
Source: Ed Ferrari and Alasdair Rae, Local Housing Market Volatility, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Date: 2011-Jan
The government announced a package of measures intended to enhance consumer protection in the mortgage market. The measures would: transfer the regulation of new and existing second-charge residential mortgages from the Office of Fair Trading to the Financial Services Authority, to ensure consistent standards of consumer protection; ensure consumer protections were maintained when a mortgage book was sold by a mortgage lender to an unregulated firm; and extend the existing regulation of the sale-and-rent-back market to all providers.
Source: Written Ministerial Statement 26 January 2011, column 9WS, House of Commons Hansard, TSO
Links: Hansard | HMT press release | Citizens Advice press release | CML press release | PwC press release
Date: 2011-Jan
