We use a user-cost model to study how dispersed information among housing market participants a¤ects the equilibrium house price. In the model, agents consume housing services, speculate on price changes and are disparately informed about local economic conditions. Information dispersion leads agent to form heterogeneous expectations about housing demand and prices. Optimists, who expect high h...

Over the past year, there has been a very sharp rise in loan approvals for investors in housing, with the result that investors now account for over 40 per cent of all housing loans approved. This represents the continuation of a decade-long trend which has seen the share of investor loans in total housing loans more than double since the early 1990s (Graph 1). This strong growth in borrowing b...

For most homeowners, the house is the single most important consumption good appearing as an argument of the utility function, and, at the same time, the dominant asset in the portfolio. This paper uses a mean-variance efŽ ciency framework to examine the household’s optimal portfolio problem when owner-occupied housing is included in the list of available assets. Housing differs from stocks and...

This paper aims to clarify the underlying basis for the observed differences in the consumption of school quality associated with race, education, and income. In particular, I attempt to distinguish whether these differences are driven primarily by differences in preferences for schooling itself or by variation in other factors that affect the residential location, school, and housing choices o...

In this paper I explore the relationship between population and housing. I argue that this relationship is two-sided. On the one hand, the size of a population, and particularly the number of households, determines the demand for housing. On the other hand, the availability of suitable and affordable housing may attract certain categories of migrants. It also influences young people’s opportuni...

migration of people to urban areas from the rural areas usually comes with its challenges interms of infrastructural requirement and housing to cater for growing population. one of the challenge for the urbandwellers in nigeria is that of adequate housing. the inability of the government to meet this demand has seen thepeople concerned seeking alternative solutions to housing need. the resultin...

The specific conditions that characterize housing finance contracts allow me to determine a precise relationship between financial constraints and the income sensitivity of investment demand: relaxation of financial constraints is associated with higher income sensitivity of housing investment demand (and equilibrium housing prices). This implication differs from those explored in previous rese...

Homelessness and drug use often overlap and the harms of substance use are exacerbated by homelessness. Responding to the twin problems of homelessness and substance use is an important aspect of strategies to end homelessness. The introduction and development of ten year plans to end homelessness in North America heralds a new era of systemic responses to homelessness. Central to many of these...