TY - JOUR
T1 - Life on the edge
T2 - a perspective on precarious home ownership in Australia and the UK
AU - Wood, Gavin
AU - Smith, S.J.
AU - Cigdem, M
AU - Ong, R
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - This paper focuses on two countries with debt-funded ownership-centred housing systems, Australia and the UK. Financially, there are similarities between these two societies, which have relatively ‘complete’, reasonably well-regulated mortgage markets, had limited exposure to the extremes of subprime, and have been pre-occupied with (and reasonably successful in) restoring ‘business as usual’ in housing and mortgage markets. Institutionally, however, the countries differ from each other, notably with respect to the size and function of the rented sectors. By modelling matched datasets from panel surveys in Australia and the UK, this paper considers how home-buying households in these financially similar, institutionally distinct, countries coped with the ups and downs of housing and mortgage markets in the first decade of the millennium. To address this, we focus on the edges of ownership: that once-stark boundary between owning and renting whose character is often taken for granted, yet which contains important signals about the functioning of housing systems, their link to the wider economy and the well-being of home occupiers. The analysis considers in hitherto unprecedented empirical detail how, why, when, for whom and in what way the edges of ownership proved precarious in the decade to 2010.
AB - This paper focuses on two countries with debt-funded ownership-centred housing systems, Australia and the UK. Financially, there are similarities between these two societies, which have relatively ‘complete’, reasonably well-regulated mortgage markets, had limited exposure to the extremes of subprime, and have been pre-occupied with (and reasonably successful in) restoring ‘business as usual’ in housing and mortgage markets. Institutionally, however, the countries differ from each other, notably with respect to the size and function of the rented sectors. By modelling matched datasets from panel surveys in Australia and the UK, this paper considers how home-buying households in these financially similar, institutionally distinct, countries coped with the ups and downs of housing and mortgage markets in the first decade of the millennium. To address this, we focus on the edges of ownership: that once-stark boundary between owning and renting whose character is often taken for granted, yet which contains important signals about the functioning of housing systems, their link to the wider economy and the well-being of home occupiers. The analysis considers in hitherto unprecedented empirical detail how, why, when, for whom and in what way the edges of ownership proved precarious in the decade to 2010.
KW - home ownership
KW - edges of ownership
KW - equity borrowing
KW - panel surveys
U2 - 10.1080/14616718.2015.1115225
DO - 10.1080/14616718.2015.1115225
M3 - Article
SN - 1949-1247
SP - 1
EP - 27
JO - International Journal of Housing Policy
JF - International Journal of Housing Policy
ER -