Private Rental Housing in Transition Countries


Book Description

This book presents an overview of private rented housing in selected new EU member states and other transition countries – a topic scarcely researched to date, as it is largely part of the informal economy, and consequently often invisible to official statistics. Part I presents the private rented sector in Western and Northern European countries, the history of private renting under socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, and thematic issues such as restitution and marginalized groups depending on privately rented housing. Part II provides a series of country case studies from the Central and East European region. Part III concludes with chapters on the possibility of utilizing the private rental sector in affordable housing provision through good practices in both old and new EU member states, and sets out to further the housing policy debate on European housing regimes. This unique edited collection will be of great value to scholars of and practitioners involved in housing policy and economics, urban development, international relations, politics, economics and sociology.




Social Housing in Transition Countries


Book Description

This book examines the large-scale social housing programs begun in Eastern and Central Europe after 2000 as an attempt to mitigate the inequality and declining standards of living that took hold in the region after the wave of privatizations that accompanied the political turn of the 1990s. It provides both case studies and theoretical frameworks for evaluating their successes and failures.




Rental Choice and Housing Policy Realignment in Transition


Book Description

Massive privatizations of housing in Europe and Central Asia transition countries have significantly reduced rental tenure choice, threatening to impede residential mobility. Policymakers are intensifying their search for adequate policy responses aimed at broadening tenure choice for more household categories through effective rental housing alternatives in the social and private sectors. While the social alternative requires substantial and well-balanced subsidies, the private alternative will not grow unless rent, management, and tax reforms are boldly implemented and housing privatization truly completed.




A Policy Guide to Rental Housing in Developing Countries


Book Description

Rental housing has remained a neglected area of national housing policy which has instead focused, often exclusively, on promoting home ownership. Consequently, rental housing has been overlooked with very few governments implementing any kind of policy to help develop or regulate this form of housing. Yet rental housing is a key component of a well-functioning housing market. While renting is not the panacea to solving the housing challenge in the developing world, it does constitute a significant and vital housing tenure option that should be promoted alongside, not in competition to, home ownership.




Social Housing in Europe


Book Description

All countries aim to improve housing conditions for their citizens but many have been forced by the financial crisis to reduce government expenditure. Social housing is at the crux of this tension. Policy-makers, practitioners and academics want to know how other systems work and are looking for something written in clear English, where there is a depth of understanding of the literature in other languages and direct contributions from country experts across the continent. Social Housing in Europe combines a comparative overview of European social housing written by scholars with in-depth chapters written by international housing experts. The countries covered include Austria, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden, with a further chapter devoted to CEE countries other than Hungary. The book provides an up-to-date international comparison of social housing policy and practice. It offers an analysis of how the social housing system currently works in each country, supported by relevant statistics. It identifies European trends in the sector, and opportunities for innovation and improvement. These country-specific chapters are accompanied by topical thematic chapters dealing with subjects such as the role of social housing in urban regeneration, the privatisation of social housing, financing models, and the impact of European Union state aid regulations on the definitions and financing of social housing.




Housing Finance in Transition Economies


Book Description

This conference proceedings present papers providing the the first in-depth survey of current situation and challenges in the development of housing finance in major transition economies in particular, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.




Affordable Rental Housing: Making It Part of Europe’s Recovery


Book Description

Many European economies have faced pressure from rental housing affordability that has widened social and economic divergence. While significant country and regional differences exist, this departmental paper finds that in many advanced European economies a large and rising share of low-income renters, the young, and those living in cities is overburdened. In several locations, middle-income groups also increasingly face rental affordability issues.




International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home


Book Description

Available online via SciVerse ScienceDirect, or in print for a limited time only, The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home, Seven Volume Set is the first international reference work for housing scholars and professionals, that uses studies in economics and finance, psychology, social policy, sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture, law, and other disciplines to create an international portrait of housing in all its facets: from meanings of home at the microscale, to impacts on macro-economy. This comprehensive work is edited by distinguished housing expert Susan J. Smith, together with Marja Elsinga, Ong Seow Eng, Lorna Fox O'Mahony and Susan Wachter, and a multi-disciplinary editorial team of 20 world-class scholars in all. Working at the cutting edge of their subject, liaising with an expert editorial advisory board, and engaging with policy-makers and professionals, the editors have worked for almost five years to secure the quality, reach, relevance and coherence of this work. A broad and inclusive table of contents signals (or tesitifes to) detailed investigation of historical and theoretical material as well as in-depth analysis of current issues. This seven-volume set contains over 500 entries, listed alphabetically, but grouped into seven thematic sections including methods and approaches; economics and finance; environments; home and homelessness; institutions; policy; and welfare and well-being. Housing professionals, both academics and practitioners, will find The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home useful for teaching, discovery, and research needs. International in scope, engaging with trends in every world region The editorial board and contributors are drawn from a wide constituency, collating expertise from academics, policy makers, professionals and practitioners, and from every key center for housing research Every entry stands alone on its merits and is accessed alphabetically, yet each is fully cross-referenced, and attached to one of seven thematic categories whose ‘wholes' far exceed the sum of their parts




Housing Policy and Housing Finance in the Czech Republic During Transition


Book Description

This book contains the description and evaluation of a profound housing system reform constituting part of the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy in the Czech Republic. It addresses two goals: to evaluate housing subsidies (reforms) by application of improved methods of welfare economics and, secondly, to list the main factors explaining the particular outcomes of selected reforms. The author applied methods of welfare economics for an evaluation of housing subsidies in a scale unique in housing studies. The analysis of underlying factors influencing formation of housing reforms brought new findings about the essence of transition in post-socialist countries.




Tenancy Law and Housing Policy in Europe


Book Description

Tenancy law has developed in all EU member states for decades, or even centuries, but constitutes a widely blank space in comparative and European law. This book fills an important gap in the literature by considering the diverse and complex panorama of housing policies, markets and their legal regulation across Europe. Expert contributors argue that that while unification is neither politically desired nor opportune, a European recommendation of best practices including draft rules and default contracts implementing a regulatory equilibrium would be a rewarding step forward.