Exploring Australian housing supply volatility

This study examines the volatility series of housing supply in Australia. A Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity-in-Mean (GARCH-M) model is employed to analyse the volatility series of Australian housing supply over the study period of 1974-2010. The results show the volatility of housing starts is negatively linked to housing starts, suggesting that higher uncertainty does lower housing starts. The results also reveal that the uncertainty of housing starts is also captured by the volatilities of interest rates and construction costs. Therefore policy makers should monitor and attempt to minimise the volatility of housing supply. These steps will enhance housing construction activities and increase the availability of housing supply to potential home buyers.

Investigating the housing market fluctuation under an expansionary monetary policy in Australia

This research empirically investigates the impact of monetary policy on the housing market in Australia from 1996 to 2009. Three primary variables associated with the housing sector and monetary policy, including interest rates, money supply and house prices, are estimated by a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model. Depending upon the analysis using the impulse response function, it can be identified that monetary policy significantly affects the housing market in Australia by the adjustments in interest rates and money supply. The empirical results from this study may be useful for policy makers to enact appropriate policies in relation to the infrastructure planning.

Evaluating UK housing policies to tackle housing affordability

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical summary of UK housing policies. It aims to evaluate UK government's housing policies, before and after the publication of the Barker Review, to tackle affordability issues in the owner-occupied sector. It examines the extent to which housing policy contributes to or alleviates the problem of the affordability of owner-occupied housing.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper evaluates the impact of UK government housing policies since 2000 on housing affordability by analysing their impact on the dynamics of housing demand and supply.

Findings – The Barker Review, which applied simple economic ideas and techniques in analysing the owner-occupied UK housing market, argued that increases in new housing supply would help to improve housing affordability. The second Barker Review suggested that changes to the planning system were needed in order not only to increase new housing supply, but to make housing supply more sensitive to changing demands. The Barker Reviews brought about a major re-think in government policy towards housing, particularly relating to new build and the planning system. However, the heavy reliance on the private sector to provide additional housing has reduced the effectiveness of policy changes. In addition, the adoption by the government of “demand-side” housing policies has done little to negate the volatility of UK house prices or to raise the overall affordability of owner-occupied housing.

Originality/value – This paper reflects on government failures in UK housing policy in addressing the affordability of owner-occupied housing. The findings will be of interest to policy makers and housing researchers.

An ethnography of housing : public housing work in Victoria

This thesis examines the everyday practices of housing officers working in the Victorian Office of Housing, a large public sector statutory authority providing rental housing to low–income households. Housing officer work has changed substantially associated with the shift from the provision of ‘public housing’ in the post–WWII period to the provision of ‘welfare housing’ from the early 1980s. These changes are evident in both the formal organisation of work and day–to–day practices. The principal research question addressed is ‘How has the work of staff in the Victorian Office of Housing changed as a consequence of the shift from the provision of ‘public housing’ in the post–WWII period to the provision of ‘welfare housing’ from the early 1980s?’

This question is addressed by presenting an historically informed ethnography of the Office of Housing. Research was undertaken over a twelve–month period through interviews, participant observation and the collection of documents. The data collected through the use of these methods provided the basis for the presentation of ‘thick descriptions’ of the work of staff employed to provide rental housing to low–income households.

The research into this large hierarchical formal organisation was undertaken in three offices: a local suburban office, a regional office and head office. This enabled connections and tensions in direct service delivery work and policy work to be identified and analysed. It revealed that the experience of the shift from the provision of public housing to the provision of welfare housing has not been uniform and underscores the importance of understanding organisations as socially constructed.

Staff work was analysed by distinguishing four overarching problems consistently referred to by staff and highlighted in formal reviews. First, ‘problems with tenants’ refers to the changing profile of tenants and staff responses and interactions. Second, the ‘problem with rent’ centres on setting and collecting rents from very low–income tenants. Third, the ‘problem with housing standards and assets’ focuses on housing quality, maintaining properties and the tenant use of properties. Fourth, the ‘problems with the organisation’ are found in the constant searching for the best ways of defining roles, leading and communicating within a large and geographically distributed organisation. These are the features of work which present dilemmas for those who seek to produce better services for households who live in public housing.

Energy efficiency rating systems for housing : an Australian perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine current trends in energy efficiency ratings and consider their likely impact on the Australian housing market.

Design/methodology/approach – The research is yet to be conducted; however a mixed method is proposed which is grounded on the theoretical model of consumer behaviour within housing markets. This model has been tested and demonstrated to be useful in predicting buyer behaviour.

Findings – Established theories of buyer perception indicate the introduction of energy efficiency rating systems will have an effect on the level of house prices.

Research limitations/implications – This research is focussed on housing in Australia but also has implications for other global housing markets which are addressing sustainability.

Practical implications – Outputs of this research have implications for policy makers, real estate agents and valuers.

Social implications – Increasing energy costs is likely to restructure the way housing markets operate with regard to sustainability and energy efficiency rating systems and also how they are understood.

Originality/value – This research will be in the Australian context utilising international modeling. As mandatory energy efficiency ratings have not been introduced, this research will be original.

Communication as coping; how staff working in public housing use narrative to understand their complex and sometimes challenging work.

This paper describes how ethnographic research was used to explore the communication practices of staff working organisation charged with the provision of low cost housing to some of the very poorest and most marginalised members of society in Victoria, Australia. This paper is concerned with how the narratives of the participants (that is, their ‘stories’) provides a very useful and potent insight into the daily life of staff working with people experiencing ‘multiple and complex needs’. The paper uses vignettes and case studies to illuminate the daily work of staff, sharing with the reader the things they see and hear and describing the complexity of the ‘wicked’ problems they face. More importantly, the research uncovered a number of narrative structures staff employ to understand and respond to these problems.

Life quality and wealth : a qualitative and quantitative comparison of affluent and poor people

It is well-documented that auent people, on average, have higher subjective wellbeing (SWB) than do poor people. is phenomenon has been explained using SWB homeostasis theory. However, a more precise understanding of the dierences in personal experience that lead to homeostatic failure remains to be documented. We sought such understanding through qualitative interviews and a quantitative examination of SWB domains. Twenty auent people and 20 people dependent on social welfare completed an interview and the Personal Wellbeing Index. As expected, the two groups diered signicantly in SWB. Moreover, the poor group reported a preponderance of negative life experiences while the auent group concentrated on the positive events in their lives. Most telling was the nding that both the qualitative and quantitative methods identied the area of ‘relationships’ as representing the greatest degree of divergence between the two groups. is life domain is especially relevant in the maintenance of normative levels of SWB.

A study of building materials to create an identity of traditional Balinese architecture for urban housing

The use or local architecture characteristics is regulated by the spatial planning and building code of Indonesia. Balinese tmditional architecture has existed, coloured the traditional architecture of Indonesia and can be used as Bali's identity that is different from other regions in Indonesia.On the other hand, the cost of such building is high and most of people in urban areas are unable to afford to build in the traditional architecture style, especially in the residential housing sector .. Some of the major components that determine the price of housing units are the price of land, building materials, labour and technology. In developing countries, the first and second components that affect the unit price of the building are building materials representing about 70% and skilled labour respectively (Ural, 1980). Based on this, a good strategy to adopt in order to minimize the price is to manipulate these two components.Based on a literature review and observation, this study will explain which aspects of building material technology can reduce the building cost and how it can maintain the identity of local architecture.The results of the study indicate that the building material can be created to both reduce cost and adopt traditional architecture style as an identity. The materials have some shapes that can be joined easily to facilitate the skill of the worker and yet still be able to adopt the forms of traditional Balinese architecture.

Factors impeding the offsite production of housing construction in China: an investigation of current practice

The promotion of offsite production is a possible future strategic direction for the construction industry as it provides economic, environmental and social benefits. However, in China, the uptake of offsite production, particularly in the housing sector, is relatively low and few studies have identified and examined the reasons behind this trend. This research gap is addressed and factors that inhibit the wider use of offsite production in China’s housing construction industry are investigated. A questionnaire survey was carried out, examining the views of 110 construction professionals in China including developers, designers, contractors, manufacturers and suppliers. Factor analysis of 21 separate variables was undertaken which extracted six principal factors, namely: ‘constructability implementation’, ‘social climate and attitudes’, ‘architectural performance’, ‘costing’, ‘supply chain’ and ‘preparatory stage’. The findings identify both barriers and challenges to increasing the uptake of offsite production in China. This provides a rare insight about the housing construction industry in China with possible implications for other developing countries that are seeking to identify and overcome barriers to the wider uptake of offsite production.

Evaluation of housing developments for sustainability using a multi-criteria approach

New housing developments in Australia, particularly on Greenfield sites on the edge of existing urban centres, need to be sustainable in environmental and social terms if long term problems are to be avoided. Sustainability is multi-dimensional and existing analyses have been found to be inadequate in assessing housing developments holistically. This paper describes research which has used five criteria (energy use, resource use, neighbourhood character, neighbourhood connectivity and diversity), representing 31 indicators, to assess three housing precincts of a regional city in southern Australia. The method has been found to produce useful assessments of sustainability. The method has the potential to inform future housing developments and to be used to improve existing suburbs.