The use of data from South Australia's rental tenancy tribunal for research and policy analysis: Issues of validity and efficacy

Abstract

This paper examines the value for research and policy development of rental tenancy data collected by the South Australian Rental Tenancy Tribunal (RTT). The data held by the RTT are for South Australia only, but comparable organisations exist in a number of other states, such as New South Wales and Victoria. Lessons learned from South Australia could serve as a pilot for the development of a new (semi‐) national framework for monitoring the private rental market.     

The use of data from South Australia's rental tenancy tribunal for research and policy analysis: Issues of validity and efficacy

This paper examines the value for research and policy development of rental tenancy data collected by the South Australian Rental Tenancy Tribunal (RTT). The data held by the RTT are for South Australia only, but comparable organisations exist in a number of other states, such as New South Wales and Victoria. Lessons learned from South Australia could serve as a pilot for the development of a new (semi-) national framework for monitoring the private rental market.     

Property Restitution and Private Rental Housing in Transition: The Case of the Czech Republic

The objective of this paper is to explain one phenomenon evident in the transformation of post-socialist states that has received insufficient scholarly attention to date: the restitution of the housing stock in terms of its causes and consequences. In this paper, the theory of social constructivism, including Kemeny's advanced application of this theory to the field of housing studies, is used to (a) explain the causes for a particular type of property restitution in the Czech Republic and (b) outline its consequences on the role and long-term social meaning of private rental housing. This research explains how restitution was viewed by the main participants in this discourse, and how the whole process was legitimised and socially constructed in the Czech Republic. The evidence presented stems from a multi-method analysis of discourse that integrates the results of in-depth interviews, content analysis of the press, and an analysis of data from attitude surveys. The paper shows how the initial state of consensus surrounding the image of restitution quickly dissolved. The emergence of divisions combined with the inadequate response of the state generated a biased image of private rental housing among Czech citizens—a pattern that persists to the present.     

Build-to-Rent and the financialization of rental housing: future research directions

Abstract

With the expansion of institutional investors into urban rental markets, many cities have witnessed a rise in Build-to-Rent (BtR). This article reviews the financialization of rental housing literature and identifies opportunities for urban housing scholars to progress understandings of BtR through future empirical and theoretical efforts. In particular, it proposes a broadening of the housing research agenda around three analytical entry points. These entry points relate to relatively understudied structural transformations of our urban housing systems implicated in the rise of BtR, namely: (1) the diversification of build-to-sell development models; (2) the evolution of the private rental sector; and (3) labour market–housing market realignments. Comparative inquiry promises to enrich understandings of BtR by revealing how city rental accommodation and tenancies are recalibrated by the investment imperatives of institutional investors and BtR asset shareholders, and with what benefits and at what costs to whom. Such contributions will also provide rich data to progress conceptual efforts to locate BtR within broader processes of housing financialization.     

The VFT Project: A Rail Union View

Homeownership has been one of the best long‐term investments in Canada. Despite demographic, economic and social trends that would normally be associated with relatively stagnant trends in housing prices, investment in housing continues to provide owners in most areas of the country with attractive rates of return. However, national trends hide considerable variation. Not all regions, or all groups in society, have been able to capitalize on the wealth associated with increases in housing prices. Many real estate analysts are also concerned that the appreciation in prices over the past couple of decades is not a trend that will continue in the future. There is cautious optimism, but owning a home in the future is unlikely to be the valued investment it was for many in the past.     

A级住宅系统性分析

可持续发展已成为社会发展的重要主题,也是A级住宅提出的社会大背景。本文阐述了A级住宅发展的推动力,在分析A级住宅系统的特征及结构体系的基础上总结了A级住宅的推广策略。     

The private rental sector: Problems,prospects and policy

Abstract

Despite the neglect in research and policy for rental housing, there is a developing awareness of the problems of the private rental sector and the need for policy intervention. The paper suggests that the development of policies must proceed with caution; there are many areas where our knowledge of the problems and processes of the private rental market are insufficient for policy development.     

深圳公共租赁住房入户调研及居住需求对比

容积率与面积标准的双重制约下,深圳公共租赁住房套型设计较为单一。深圳作为移民城市,公共租赁住房申请人更为年轻,家庭结构多元。探析公共租赁住房在使用中普遍存在的问题及居民需求,可为其设计提供有益参考。通过调查问卷、入户调研及访谈的方式,对典型公共租赁住房套型进行调查,并对同一面积标准下不同家庭结构使用情况进行对比分析。深圳公共租赁住房居住者家庭结构多样,户均使用人数超过设计配租人数的现象普遍存在。当前套型设计存在不同功能空间面积配比及尺寸设计不合理现象,套型灵活性较差。深圳公共租赁住房配租面积应与实际居住人数、家庭结构进行适配。套型布局、面积分配及空间尺寸需要仔细推敲,同时增加灵活性,以应对多样化需求。     

基于三方满意的公共租赁住房产权结构设计——以重庆市为例

以公租房租金既定作用为前提,以成本为基础构建公租房定价模型;以文献检索和问卷调查数据为依据,构建公租房出售比例决策模型;结合定价模型和出售比例决策模型,设计了公租房产权主体满意的产权结构,并以重庆市"民心佳园"公租房项目为例进行了验证。在此基础上得出结论:合理的公租房产权结构应为共有产权形式,同时为了提高保障效率,需合理确定配套商业设施比例及其售价。     

Urban Structures and Land. The Morphological Effects of Dealing with Property Rights

Urban regeneration is an increasingly important but complex business. One factor that is widely recognised as adding to the complexity is the fragmentation of landownership. However, not only does this affect the process, it also reveals itself in the outcome of urban regeneration—the urban morphology. Property rights theory helps to conceptualise this relationship. On the basis of this and two empirical cases, this paper demonstrates that the assignment of bundles of property rights over land, the delineation of the right use land and the value of land are intimately linked. These links affect the urban morphology both directly and indirectly. A direct effect of property rights structures is the incorporation of existing land uses in new development schemes. Indirect effects are the physical measures, such as increased densities and less public space, which are taken to compensate for the financial deficits that are caused by high land acquisition costs.     

The Impact of Flooding on the Price of Residential Property: A Transactional Analysis of the UK Market

The increase in frequency and severity of flood events in the UK has highlighted the question of the impact of flooding on the value of property. Previous studies in the UK and internationally have measured a wide variety of impacts from no impact to discounts of more than 40 per cent of property price. Transactional measurements have not previously been attempted in the UK property market due to lack of available data. In order to improve the available evidence base, a variation of the repeat sales methodology has been used to measure the impact of flooding on the price of transacted residential property for 13 locations in the UK. The results reveal the impact of flood events to be highly variable and temporary and no effect of flood designation. The policy implications of these findings with regard to the perceptions and behaviours of property stakeholders are explored.     

Housing in Chinese Urban Villages: The Dwellers,Conditions and Tenancy Informality

While it is widely acknowledged that Chinese urban villages provide an important source of rental housing for low-income populations, the composition of their dwellers, housing conditions and rental contracts has not been adequately studied. Drawing from surveys of sixty urban villages in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, this study finds that housing in urban villages is more family oriented; that over half of dwellers work in the tertiary sector; and that although they have relatively stable jobs, few have job security with contracts. In predominantly rental housing, the housing unit is small. Tight control by the city government over housing development has led to quite expensive rentals measured by unit space as well as poorer housing conditions. Tenancy informality in terms of the absence of formal contracts is widespread and most severe in Shanghai. The lack of formal contracts is largely independent of the status of dwellers or their job status but is rather dependent upon the rent value.     

Advancing understandings of housing supply constraints: housing market recovery and institutional transitions in British speculative housebuilding

Abstract

The vicissitudes and volatilities of recent housing market cyclicality have restructured, reconfigured and reorganized housing systems and their supply demand characteristics. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to (re)examining supply side outcomes, much less the influencing effect of supply behaviour in response to demand-side change and their interactions. Indeed, one of the biggest unanswered questions in housing studies today is how supply side characteristics, specifically those of speculative housebuilders, have been affected by the turbulent, transitionary context presented by the global financial crisis. Addressing the gap, this paper presents a novel analysis of how Britain’s biggest housebuilders respond to significant institutional shock in their operating environment and considers how this enables and constrains housing supply outcomes in the post-recession context.     

The Residential Housing Market in Iceland: Analysing the Effects of Mortgage Market Restructuring

In June 2004 the government-backed Housing Financing Fund eased its loan regulations in an attempt to consolidate its position in the domestic credit market. This led to a strong response from the domestic commercial banks that actively entered the mortgage market for the first time. These changes led to a substantial decline in long-term real mortgage rates, increased the access to credit, and allowed homeowners for the first time to withdraw equity from their homes without actual transactions. This paper sets up a simple model of housing demand and supply to analyse these effects. The results suggest that the structural changes led to a substantial rise in housing demand, with house prices rising by 25 per cent one year after the shock. This triggered a similar rise in housing investment approximately two years after the shock. The model predicts that the effects on house prices gradually die out as house prices return to the level that is consistent with normal profit margins in the construction sector. However, the housing stock remains approximately 5 per cent larger than in the baseline scenario.     

Correlation between Negotiated Rents and Neighbourhood Quality: A Case Study of Two Cities in Sweden

The aim of this paper is to analyse whether or not differentiated rents reflect differences in neighbourhood quality in housing of similar quality and age in two target cities in Sweden. The system for rent setting in Sweden is partly based on a process of negotiation in which the annual change in actual rents is an outcome of negotiations between the local branch of the Swedish Union of Tenants and local municipal housing companies. One possible outcome of these negotiations could be change to the rental structure in the different neighbourhoods within the municipality. By allowing differences in negotiated rent outcomes in different neighbourhoods, a better relationship of rent level to tenant perception of neighbourhood quality can be achieved. It is the understanding of the authors that in a number of local-housing-market rent negotiations over the last decade, the parties involved have agreed on the need for and have consciously aimed towards making such adjustments. In this paper, regression analysis has been used to analyse data about rent levels for residential units from two cities in Sweden, namely Gothenburg and Luleå. It can be concluded that differentiated rents are indeed present, hence the existing rent-setting system in Sweden can be used to improve the relationship between rental structure and neighbourhood quality.     

Institutions and Urban Space: Land,Infrastructure, and Governance in the Production of Urban Property

This paper develops an historical institutionalist approach to municipal governance, infrastructure, and property institutions, suggesting that the dense matrices of institutions in cities are co-evolutionary and path dependent. Property, infrastructure, and governance institutions play a central role in regulating capital investment in cities, structure urban change, protect and structure property’s meaning and value, and demonstrate enduringly different approaches between jurisdictions. The institutions in place when land is urbanized have profound impacts on the institutionalization and forms of urban property and the accompanying infrastructure created. The primary positive feedback that contributes to path dependence in cities flows from existing sets of property in any given jurisdiction. Cities from this perspective are path dependent landscapes of property that are differentiated primarily by the enduring imprint of the institutions that produce them.     

Residential location choice of knowledge-workers: The role of amenities,workplace and lifestyle

This study investigates the residential location choice of knowledge-workers at the intra-metropolitan level by applying discrete choice models. The models represent housing choices of 833 knowledge-workers in high-technology and financial services and analyze the relative importance of lifestyle and cultural amenities in addition to classic location factors. Hence, the model bridges the gap between the recent lifestyle-oriented and the classical utility-oriented conceptualizations of the residential choice of knowledge-workers. The most important factors are municipal socioeconomic level, housing affordability and commuting time, while substantial secondary factors are cultural and educational land-use and culture-oriented lifestyle.     

我国公租房物业管理的困境及对策研究——以重庆为例

公租房物业管理中"搭便车"问题突出,严重阻碍其持续运行。以重庆市为例,在分析公租房物业服务属性及特点的基础上,依据集体行动理论剖析公租房物业管理中存在的三种矛盾,进而提出优化物业管理模式和物业公司选聘方式、优化物业管理资金获取途径、优化物业服务费收费方式、强调物业公司的社会责任、加强公租房物业监管等对策,以期为我国公租房物业管理走出困境提供参考。     

Housing of Limited Property Rights: A Paradox Inside and Outside Chinese Cities

This paper develops a prototypal theoretical framework for analyzing property inalienability and applies it to housing of limited property rights in China, which includes so-called ‘small-property-rights housing’ in the countryside (SLPR housing) and the affordable housing programme in the city (ALPR housing). The integrated analysis of ALPR and SLPR housing focuses on inalienability restrictions to ownership entitlement. By preserving current property use, inalienability can address externality, public good and even macro-economic problems that arise from property sales. Both ALPR and SLPR provide good empirical support for the theoretical hypotheses. Moreover, they demonstrate some important functions of inalienability in a transitional economy, including helping to maintain macro stability as well as being an important tool for implementing partial reform strategy. Inalienability is also a second-best tool to protect private property rights against the intervention of local political forces. However, various problems with ALPR and SLPR housing show that inalienability is also a rough tool that needs to be improved or replaced in order to achieve micro-economic efficiency.     

农民工视角下的我国廉租住房发展模式研究————以重庆公租房与深圳城中村的住房模式为例

公租房和城中村出租屋是中国城镇化进程中两种常见的廉租住房类型，它们为大量进城的农民工提供了在城市中的生息之所，在推动经济发展和维护社会稳定中起到了关键作用。选取分析重庆和深圳这两个城市的廉租住房社区在地理空间分布、空间结构形态、社会人群结构及商业配套服务四个方面的比较，从农民工的视角探讨了哪种居住模式更能有效促进农民工群体的城镇化和可持续发展，展示了对于廉租住房及其社区生活认知的多样性，以期为我国其他类型的廉租住房建设提供新的思考。