The Timing of Household Events and Housing Events in the Netherlands: A Longitudinal Perspective

Research on the relationship between household events and housing events so far has largely ignored the role of timing. This study aims to uncover in what way the postponement of marriage and childbirth that took place in the second half of the 20th century in the Netherlands affected the timing of moving into 'long-stay housing' (single-family dwellings and owner occupied dwellings). This is done by analysing time lags between household events and housing events. Survival analysis shows that over cohorts, moving into long-stay housing happens consistently earlier, and increasingly frequently before first childbirth. This finding is most likely attributable to the increased economic prosperity and increased availability of long-stay housing. This allows young people to adjust their housing to the household situation they anticipate, rather than to wait until they actually experience the household event. However, this does not hold for single home leavers: they move into long-stay housing neither earlier, nor much more often over time. It is concluded that the level of commitment in the household situation is the fundamental explanation for housing choice, and that economic prosperity mainly facilitates advancement in the timing of adapting the housing situation to the (anticipated) household situation.     

An empirical analysis of the characteristics of residential location choice in the rapidly changing Korean housing market

This study examines the factors of residential location choice by considering the characteristics of the Korean housing market. From various factors of the residential location choice of a household, this study focuses on the effect of opportunities to engage in other activities, represented by accessibility, and the variety of housing tenure types—i.e., owner-occupied, Chonsei, and monthly rent—and the change of each type’s share of the market. The results of this empirical study indicate that households will most often choose to live in districts with more accessibility (a representative variable of demand-driven market), more permitted housing floor space (that of supply-driven one), higher rents, and lower housing prices in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA). That is to say, the rapidly changing Korean housing market indicates a transition phase from a supply-driven to a demand-driven one. The significance of the variables and their effects were different for each housing tenure type. This means that the tenure type choice of a household is influenced by the level of income and assets. The results of this study are significant in understanding the characteristics of residential location choices of Korea and the countries in the transition as well.     

Housing decision-making process explained by third agers,Finland: ‘we didn’t want this,but we chose it’

This paper investigates housing decision-making processes, using ‘third agers’ as a target group. Third agers offer individual and household level explanations to scrutinize the decision-making process in detail, explaining individual processes and negotiations. A cross-sectional qualitative study combining data from three projects, conducted in Helsinki Region, Finland, indicates that the triggers for moving affect the ways preferences are selected and formed as choice criteria. The interview-based data explains negotiations and other forms of information processing throughout the choice process, ending with unexpected choice outcomes. Despite the focus groups’ relative wide-ranging freedom of choice, residents constantly adjust their preferences as choice criteria throughout the decision-making process. Afterwards, coping strategies are adopted to reconcile eventual discrepancies. The paper indicates that the reasons for dissatisfaction are not communicated to the developers or the architects. The results suggest that the residents are not operating as prosumers with influence on housing design and production.     

A simulation model of residential mobility and housing choice

Residential mobility is the outcome of housing market search. Mobility rates depend on the search intensity of the household, the arrival rate of opportunities in the market, and the rates of acceptance of these opportunities by the households. Micro-analytical models of overt mobility fail in decomposing the compound rate into its constituent parts and can therefore not distinguish between demand- or supply-driven changes in the housing market. Micro-analytical models of stated preferences are only partial and do not reflect the actual behaviour of households in a specific housing market context. Simulation models of residential mobility and housing market search offer a potential advantage over micro-analytical models, due to their flexible nature. By simulating demand, supply, and the actual match of households to vacancies, a full representation of the housing market can be given. TheLocSim model presented here is a micro simulation model of a local housing market and is illustrative of the potential for modelling residential mobility. This includes:

-the variation in search intensities of households, dependent on the motive for moving, including dependence on events in other than the housing career;

-the generation of supply, as an unintended outcome of the residential mobility of households that move to another dwelling;

-the adjustment of initial preferences, as households become aware of the opportunities and constraints in the local housing market during their search;

-the public choice, with respect to the creation of opportunities by stimulating the construction of dwellings and with respect to imposing constraints on the accessibility of social rented housing.

The application of this model to the specific group of young people in the process of household formation illustrates the sensitivity of the rates of residential mobility and out-migration to shortages and other constraints in the local housing market.     

Intentions to Move and Actual Moving Behaviour in The Netherlands

This study examines how anticipated triggers for moving and individual, household and regional characteristics hamper or stimulate actual moving behaviour of people who intend to move. It uses a longitudinal dataset from the Netherlands, in which survey data from the Housing Demand Survey 2002 are combined with register data from the Social Statistical Database. The study finds that people with a strong intention to move are almost four times as likely to move as people with a less strong intention to move. Homeowners are more likely to realise a strong intention to move than renters who want to move within the rental sector of the housing market. The probability of actually moving is particularly great for those wishing to move from owner-occupied to rented housing and those with more resources, whereas it is small for people whose search location is in the Randstad.     

Changes in transitions from private renting to homeownership in the context of rapidly rising house prices

A period associated with the emergence of the current housing crisis in Britain provides a testbed in which to investigate household tenure choice in the context of rapidly rising house prices. We compile a bespoke data-set combining data from the British Household Panel Survey and sources of local and national housing and mortgage market information covering the period 1994–2008. During this period, we observe three key changes in behaviour associated with the emergence of the housing crisis: (i) increasing acceptance of long-term renting; (ii) the emergence of local house prices as a factor inhibiting entry to homeownership at district level; and (iii) the cessation of moving to a lower cost district as a strategy to enter homeownership. We interpret these findings as some private tenants reducing their aspiration for homeownership, and those seeking entry to homeownership shifting strategy from moving to cheaper districts in favour of staying put and saving.     

Housing Reform and Home Ownership Behaviour in China: A Case Study in Guangzhou

The recent housing reform in China signifies the paradigm shift from central planning to market mechanisms in the allocation of housing resources. This paper aims to identify major determinants, household demographics and work unit characteristics in the tenure choice decision so that policy implications can be drawn. The case study on Guangzhou provides insights into Mainland household decisions on choosing the utility-maximising tenure mode. Empirical results indicate that the market allocation mechanism introduced by the housing reforms has not yet replaced the entrenched influence from work units on home ownership behaviour. The finding on unsatisfied home owners is rather unexpected.     

Moving House and Housing Preferences in Older Age in Slovenia

Various studies indicate that the elderly are unwilling to move, while health issues are one of the important factors influencing decisions to move. In our study, we tested the willingness of the elderly to accept various housing options based on a large quantitative survey of persons aged 50 and above conducted in 2015 in Slovenia. Our focus was on the respondents’ attitudes to different housing options, especially less-well-known options such as senior cohousing, household groups, family caregiving for elderly people and multigenerational residential buildings. This is relevant for the future development of housing and care policies because in a majority of countries housing markets will need to adapt to the growing elderly populations and their diversified needs. We employ cluster analysis to analyze which housing options are acceptable, how people can be grouped regarding the acceptability of moving house, and the characteristics of these groups.     

Housing choice: Assumptions and approaches

Residential mobility and housing choice are studied within a variety of research traditions. The traditions are classified into four approaches, depending on the conceptualization of housing choice they use. Four approaches of housing choice are distinguished: the continuous choice approach, the risk approach, the two-stage choice approach, and the three-stage search and choice approach. In the continuous choice approach, people are assumed to continuously choose between types of housing or levels of housing consumption. It is argued that this approach conforms to a concept of rationality used in the micro-economic sense of utility maximization. The other three approaches are more in line with a bounded rationality concept. They assume that people are not constantly evaluating their housing situation but consider moving only after a certain trigger has set off an intention to move. The three approaches assuming limited periods of housing choice differ in the way they treat triggers for moving versus resources, constraints, and opportunities. They also differ in terms of what is viewed as the object of choice. The risk approach does not explicitly model choice. The two-stage approach models the choice between various opportunities. And the three-stage approach models the choice between accepting and not accepting a particular opportunity “arriving” at a certain point in time. Clara H. Mulder holds a rearch fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) while being a member of the Falculty of Geographical Sciences at Utrecht University.     

How long do households remain in housing affordability stress?

We develop a model that specifies the duration of housing affordability stress for particular types of households. Using panel data from Australia, households are considered in semi- and parametric analysis against different household characteristics, revealing whether these characteristics predict the duration of housing affordability stress. For most types of households, an experience of housing affordability stress lasts less than one year. A group of household types disproportionately made up of renters and sole persons remains in stress for longer periods. Chronic housing affordability stress occurs if the duration of stress lasts for more than three years. Linking the duration of stress to household types, and demographic, financial and educational characteristics makes it possible to design more targeted, and therefore more efficient housing affordability policies.     

Local housing-market effects on tenure choice

The main objective of thepresent study is to find out which marketfactors affect homeownership attainment aftercontrolling for individual human capital. The1980 and 1990 individual Census data (PUMS) inthe U.S. are used to investigate the contextualinfluences on choosing two types of housing:single- and multi-family housing. Trichotomoustenure choice models are applied to fourrepresentative age groups. The study takesadvantage of the multi-level design, allowingrelationships between individual and housingmarket characteristics to vary from place toplace. One finding is that market variations aswell as individual characteristics affecttenure choices. The authors argue that researchon homeownership attainment should not onlyconsider individual or household attributes butshould be sensitive to spatiality thatrecognizes market effects. The conclusion isthat housing research needs to be comprehensiveenough to understand the complex interactionbetween the individual's human capital and themetropolitan housing-market characteristics.     

On the Path to Homeownership: Money,Family Composition and Low-income Households

In Norway, as in many other countries, homeownership is encouraged politically, and a majority of the households become homeowners at some stage in their life cycle. Many households move house when circumstances change, and it is often at this point that they also make their tenure choice. This paper employs a bivariate probit framework to model the transition rate from renting into homeownership. Using a sample of initial renters, subsequent tenure choice is analysed jointly with the stay-move decision. A particularly important question in this context is whether low-income households face differential constraints on entering owner occupation that could be addressed by policy change. The empirical model includes financial characteristics, household characteristics and changes in household characteristics as explanatory variables. Changes in household composition are particularly important in explaining variations in both tenure choice and mobility. Hence, the common practice of estimating housing market behaviour using a panel of intact households potentially obfuscates important determinants of that behaviour. The paper proceeds by using the equivalent of a Chow test to show that a hypothesis of equal coefficients in samples of low- and high-income households is firmly rejected. Thus low-income households do behave differently. Short-term variations in income appear to have little effect on people's capacity to enter owner occupation. However, low-income households are more dependent on past savings for successful entry. This suggests a rather different policy approach if owner occupation is to be expanded.     

Spatial concentration and deconcentration of household types in the Amsterdam region Effects of three scenarios of new construction

In the Netherlands, housing construction isvery much in the domain of public policy:quantity, quality and location of housing aresubject to public choice. In order to evaluatepossible locations and possible compositions ofthe housing construction in terms of dwellingtypes, the effects of alternative housingconstruction programmes have been simulatedusing a dynamic housing market simulation model– Socrates.With the same demographic and economicbackground, three housing constructionprogrammes were evaluated in terms of changesin concentration of certain household types(elderly, one-person, and low-incomehouseholds). The first one is a `continuationof current policy' variant. The second is the`demand' variant, in which housing constructionfollows housing demand. The third is arestrictive variant, in which housingconstruction follows demand, but within certainspatial restrictions.The results show that in the course of thecurrent and next decades a certainlevelling-off of existing concentrations willoccur. These tendencies are, however, onlymarginally affected by alternative housingconstruction programmes; demographic andeconomic trends have far greater impact on theconcentration of certain household types.     

户式热水采暖系统的特点及探讨

本文简要阐述了户式热水采暖系统的特点及适用范围,通过与传统集中热水系统比较,从热源到水系统形式、调节性能、运行管理及收费方式等方面提出其在居住建筑中使用的优越性,是采暖地区住户提高采暖品质,满足住户个性化需要的理想选择。     

Linking a housing vacancy chain model and a behavioral choice model for improved housing policy evaluation

This paper presents a linkage between the Markov Chain model of housing vacancy transfers and two types of behavioral choice model. First, it shows how vacancy transition probabilities can be computed from the estimated parameters in a household's house choice model. Then it shows how the transition probabilities can be directly estimated from a model of the seller's choice of highest bid among households. The latter also provides information on the expected benefit of a household move among sectors of an urban housing market, which is indispensable in using the vacancy multiplier for policy evaluation.     

The effect of housing assistance arrangements on household recovery: an empirical test of donor-assisted and owner-driven approaches

The paper assesses whether different types of housing assistance–owner-driven in situ or donor-assisted resettlement housing programs—influence perceptions of household recovery by tsunami-affected households. Utilizing data gathered in India 3½ years after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, we compared the perceptions of households provided with either in situ housing assistance or resettlement/relocation housing assistance. The extent to which households have recovered from the disaster was also examined to gauge the importance of housing arrangements in household recovery. We found that the beneficiaries of the resettlement programs generally experienced improvements in basic household amenities, while households provided with financial and material assistance for in situ housing repairs and rebuilding reported better access to essential services. When assessed in terms of perceptions of overall household recovery, the beneficiaries of in situ housing assistance programs fared better than beneficiaries of the resettlement programs despite the former receiving lower monetary assistance. These findings offer new insights to architects, designers, and public officials on what types of housing assistance arrangements expedite the overall recovery process and can help to evaluate and refocus funding towards specific housing recovery programs. The analysis thereby makes it easier to gauge the successes and failures of post disaster housing recovery programs.