The Uk Housing Market

The housing crisis of 2008 can trace its origins back to the stock market trends of the mid- to late 90 's. During a period of extended growth in the stock market, increased individual wealth among investors led to generalized increases in spending, including in the housing market. With more disposable income in the pockets of consumers, the demand for housing increased in the late 90 's. Due to the fact that homes are large projects and their construction takes a large amount of time, the supply of homes in the market is inelastic on the short term. Because of the fixed supply of homes, as per the law of supply, which

since there is a shortage of houses there is a rush to try and build more and a not much of an incentive to maintain properties. So, the quality of housing will start going down.

The increasing homeownership rate in the United States is a worthwhile policy goal. The housing economy creates jobs for American citizens as well as brings down the competitive qualities to purchasing a home allowing more middleclass citizens to spend money on houses. In doing so this drives the overall economy up in the United States.

There are several factors that can influence the housing industry economically. Supply and demand coupled with price elasticity can affect the housing industry. Negative and positive externalities, wage inequality, and the monetary and fiscal policies can all have substantial affect the industry of new homes. It must also be determined exactly how the economy affects the industry in both positive and negative ways.

The housing market illustrates a good example of the market equilibrium process. According to the law of demand, as home prices fall, the demand will increase, and when prices rise, the demand will decrease. The law of supply indicates that as prices rise, supply will rise, and as prices fall, supply will decrease.

Meanwhile, yearly house price inflation rates in the top 20 cities are running in line with the national trend. The cities with the highest rates of increase are Seattle (+12%), Portland (+10%) and Dallas (+9%). Lower tier property prices appear to be more volatile than their high end counterparts in both Seattle and Portland. Meanwhile, the three cities with the lowest rates of house price inflation are New York (+3%), Washington (+4%) and Cleveland (+5%). Furthermore, rising house prices appear to be having an adverse impact on affordability. According to the National Association of Realtors, rising prices are offsetting higher disposable incomes and stable mortgage rates, and affordability has consequently been declining since January 2015. Partly driving the increase in prices is a lack of available supply of existing single family homes for sale. The number of months’ of unsold inventory was just below 4 in March and availability has been gradually falling since 2014. Additionally, there is a relatively tight supply situation for new single family homes for sale, which is also helping to support prices.

Housing affordability can be defined as the ability to access appropriate housing at tenure or price which is not a significant burden upon household income. (1, 2) Australia has seen a significant decline in housing affordability; average house prices have increased by 147% between 2001 and 2011. This was not matched by increases in income. (1) This decline can be attributed to economic growth, population growth, more accessible finance and incentives for owners and investors. These factors create an incentive to buy and store wealth in housing, resulting in overinvestment and house price inflation. (2, 3) Consequently, this results in depletion of affordable housing for low-income households and increases pressure on social housing stocks. (1, 4) Supply and demand has a significant effect on housing affordability. (1)

Two economic factors affect supply in a stable housing market, price of related goods or similar houses, and the price of the good, best represented by style or size in the case of the housing market. The affluence of a community typically determines how much homes sell for in those communities, and therefore communities where a lot of people want to live become areas where average home prices are high. (Kumar, 1) There is little space in these affluent communities, and therefore little supply. A good example is New York City, where no homes are available, only apartment buildings, and very few apartments are actively exchanged each year.

Dokko, Doyle, Kiley et all shows graphs of how the housing market climbed from 1974- 2001 with small periods of dips in the housing market. Housing prices began and all-time record climb points above the nominal house price. The inflation of house prices, increasing interest rates, and ease of access to mortgages set America on a course for disaster in the housing market.

Housing demand includes household growth, real incomes, real wealth, tax concessions to both owner-occupied and rental housing, concessions to first homebuyers, returns on alternative investments, cost and availability of finance for housing and the institutional structure affecting housing finance provision (Yates, 2008). The growth in the number of households and in real income results in the increased pressure on housing demand.

Multiple reasons exist for the the lack of affordable housing. On the demand side these include population growth and increased migration to urban areas, easily accessible housing finance, tax incentives and a “strong cultural preference for owner-occupied detached houses”. On the supply side, affordability problems are exacerbated by inflexible and slow responses to the need for new housing stock, lack of infrastructure and generally inefficient planning processes and development assessment by local governments.

Government policies and subsides have a sizable impact on property price, and demand. The government can temporarily boost demand with tax credits, deduction and subsidies. From the customers point of view

None of these explanations, however, is capable of fully explaining the housing bubble. From 1997 to 2006 nominal U.S. housing prices rose 188%. By mid-2009, however, housing prices had fallen by 33% from peak. As the United States attempts to rebuild its housing finance system, it is of paramount importance to understand what caused the housing bubble. Until we understand how and why the housing bubble occurred, we cannot be certain that a reconstructed housing finance system will not again produce such a devastating bubble. As you can see there are numerous theories and explanations for the bubble. Without getting too deep

Declining price attract people with the easy loan facilities of their banks. And banks are ready with very high risk loans. This excess supply of home inventory placed significant downward pressure on prices. As prices declined, more homeowners were at risk of default and foreclosure. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller price index, by November 2007, average U.S. housing prices had fallen approximately 8% from their Q2 2006 peak and by May 2008 they had fallen 18.4%. The price decline in December 2007 versus the year-ago period was 10.4% and for May 2008 it was 15.8%. Housing prices are expected to continue declining until this inventory of surplus homes (excess supply) is reduced to more typical levels.

A difficult characteristic to understand about the housing market is how a price is given for a particular house. That price will be designated to that particular house alone. All houses have various pricing, so I can’t always assume that one will cost more or less than any other. The pricing for houses vary based on their characteristics. Each characteristic must be analyzed to determine its contribution or detraction toward the price. I have taken some of these characteristics and modeled the relationship between them and the price of real estate for a specific area.