Kees Dol

From Housing Bubble to Repossessions: Spain Compared to Other West European Countries

After a real estate boom the housing market took a dramatic turn in Spain, where repossessions and evictions are now a big social problem. Hundreds of thousands have lost their home since 2008 and many more are at risk. This paper provides a qualitative analysis of the Spanish experience and puts it into a comparative West European perspective. The risk of repossession was found to have six dimensions: the employment situation, the social protection schemes, the structure of the housing and housing finance markets, the lending practices, the house price development and the effectiveness of policies to prevent repossession. Spain ‘scores’ badly on all six dimensions, which explain the large number of repossessions. Only recently, and under strong societal pressure, has the Spanish government developed policies to tackle this problem.

Going too far in the battle against concentration? On the balance between supply and demand of social housing in Dutch cities

In the second half of the 1990s, Dutch urban housing policy shifted from urban renewal to urban restructuring and the creation of more socially mixed neighbourhoods. Motives for restructuring stem from the ongoing debates on concentration, segregation and social mix. Here, we focus on the main instruments of urban restructuring, that is, the demolition of social housing and the construction of more expensive rental and owner-occupied housing. Continued restructuring may eventually lead to a shortage of social rented dwellings for low-income households, the target group of social housing. An important political question is therefore whether the dwindling supply of social housing still matches the potential demand in the target group. We addressed this question with an analysis of three Dutch cities: Rotterdam, The Hague and Breda. The results indicate that, although demolition has brought about substantial changes, the share of social rented housing remains high in most restructuring neighbourhoods and restructuring has not resulted in concentrations of social rented housing in other, non-restructuring neighbourhoods in any of the three cities. In Rotterdam, which had a very large social housing stock at the beginning of the restructuring operation, there are still sufficient affordable homes for lower income households. However, in The Hague and Breda, restructuring has tightened the supply of social rental housing. The municipal authority in The Hague has attempted to remedy the situation by entering regional agreements to secure sufficient levels of affordable housing.

A Review of “Housing finance systems: market failures and government failures”, By Sock-Yong Phang

It is almost three decades after the first great comparative study by Boleat (1985) on housing finance systems. Since this date more comparative work on housing finance has seen the light, and amon...