A panel error correction approach to explore spatial correlation patterns of the dominant housing market in Australian capital cities

Purpose - A panel error correction model has been developed to investigate the spatial correlation patterns among house prices. This paper aims to identify a dominant housing market in the ripple down process. Design/methodology/approach - Seemingly unrelated regression estimators are adapted to deal with the contemporary correlations and heterogeneity across cities. Impulse response functions are subsequently implemented to simulate the spatial correlation patterns. The newly developed approach is then applied to the Australian capital city house price indices. Findings - The results suggest that Melbourne should be recognised as the dominant housing market. Four levels were classified within the Australian house price interconnections, namely: Melbourne; Adelaide, Canberra, Perth and Sydney; Brisbane and Hobart; and Darwin. Originality/value - This research develops a panel regression framework in addressing the spatial correlation patterns of house prices across cities. The ripple-down process of house price dynamics across cities was explored by capturing both the contemporary correlations and heterogeneity, and by identifying the dominant housing market.

Social media for social change lawyers: an Australian housing rights lawyer's experience

This paper reflects on the use of Twitter and Facebook at the PILCH Homeless Persons' Legal Clinic (HPLC), and the lessons for social change lawyers. While these two forms of social media have been useful tools in the HPLC's mission to address the systemic and structural issues that impact on people experiencing homelessness in Victoria, Australia, there have been salutary lessons in their deployment, engagement and impact. This paper, written in autoethnographic form by a former HPLC manager, reflects on the costs and benefits of these new media forms for ‘social change lawyering’.

Universal housing : Malaysian architect's perception on its implementation

Implementation of Universal Design (UD) in Malaysian built and natural environments is facing some barriers especially in housing. Irrespective of any age and ability, UD is a concept that seeks to positively respond to the needs of access to the physical environment which includes the right to live contentedly in one's house. The aim of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of Malaysian architects toward UD with an emphasis upon housing as a means in identifying the barriers of its implementation. The interview questions focus on perceptions, knowledge and understanding of architects in terms of terminology, legislation and standards, government and professional institute's initiatives and policies on UD. Findings show that among the barriers are confusion in terminology, biased knowledge, and misconceptions of the concept. The ongoing results of the study are presented in the paper together with suggestions for improvements and other implications.

The Bali Aga housing : minimalist and functionalist architecture

Nusantara (Indonesia Archipelago) Architecture is a significant heritage which has been inherited to descendants. Nusantara Architecture is rooted from the existence of culture that spread over the Indonesia archipelago. The culture in each region related to their traditional customs and religions that binding the culture and physic as well as socio-culture of its society. It cannot be denied that the traditional architecture is closed to realm and tactful definitely to interact to the environment. Likewise the Balinese traditional architecture is a substantial treasure which has been inherited and maintained currently. Culture and tradition are adhered in the Tri Hita Karana philosophy, which shows how Balinese balance to their Gods, natures and fellow creatures. The concept implies in the architecture of housing as product of culture. The housing pattern of the Bali Aga villages in Bali Province which has hut forms with linear or compound pattern, it lies naturally from headwater of the mountain to downstream of the sea. The existence of Bali Aga housing stills abide and maintain that defined as reflection of minimalist and functional architecture. Example for this is some observations in the indigenous villages' i.e Pinggan Village, Buahan Village, Julah Village etc. Those housing pattern shows the minimalist concept for living facility and its functions. The discourse of traditional architecture aims to preserve Nusantara architecture which is facing nowadays as a dilemma to be abandoned.

From fibro shacks to McMansions: considering the impact of housing change on the sense of place in the historic Victorian coastal towns of Sorrento and Queenscliff

Eighty per cent of Australians now live within 50 kilometres of the coast.1 While most of the population remains concentrated in the large capital cities, some people have chosen small coastal towns as their permanent and or second-home destination. Greater mobility and income has increased the feasibility and attractiveness of living in these once overlooked and forgotten towns. The arrival of these new residents has changed the towns in both positive and negative ways. Declining traditional industries have been replaced by tourism and service sectors, providing a much-needed economic revival. The expectations of new residents, both permanent and non-permanent, however, have also brought challenges to the towns. Metropolitan value systems sometimes impact negatively on the unique sense of place and neighbourhood character of these towns. This paper presents both quantitative and qualitative evidence of the impact on character and sense of place in two historic coastal towns, Queenscliff and Sorrento, in southern Victoria. Census data shows how employment and the number of permanent residents have changed radically over the last 50-60 years, altering the social fabric of the towns. An analysis of the building footprint over a similar timeframe shows a growth in building size as larger houses become more common, and a growth in planning appeals for the towns is indicative of a clash of expectations between the council, long-time and new residents. While these indicators demonstrate the impact on the character of the towns as defined by their built environment, some oral accounts of local residents are used to show the emotional impact of these changes on the traditional sense of place associated with these towns. Some specific examples of changes to the built environment are provided to demonstrate that local planning schemes are not always successful in protecting neighbourhood character and that further measures are required in order to safeguard the uniqueness of coastal towns from the negative aspects of development.

Working with 'housing variance' to model urban growth futures with inner metropolitan Melbourne

Continued population growth in Melbourne over the past decade has led to the development of a range of strategies and policies by State and Local levels of government to set an agenda for a more sustainable form of urban development. As the Victorian State government moves towards the development of 'Plan Melbourne', a new metropolitan planning strategy currently being prepared to take Melbourne forward to 2050, the following paper addresses the issue of how new residential built form will impact on and be accommodated in existing Inner Melbourne activity centres. Working with the prospect of establishing a more compact city in order to meet an inner city target of 90,000 new dwellings (Inner Metropolitan Action Plan - IMAP Strategy 5), the paper presents a 'Housing Variance Model' based on household structure and dwelling type. As capacity is progressively altered through a range of built form permutations, the research attempts to assess the impact on the urban morphology of a case study of four Major Activity Centres in the municipality of Port Phillip.

One-size-fits-all housing : an exploration of 6-star requirements in the volume builder sector

Energy consumption attributed to the residential sector makes up around 8% of the total consumption in Australia. Roughly a third of all houses built in Victoria are done so by the largest 20 builders. These volume builders keep costs down by offering a selection of ‘clone’ designs from which the client can choose, however they lose the site-specific customisation which is required for effective passive design in favour of a one-size-fits-all approach where designs are developed to a point where they can satisfy just the minimum requirements in a range of orientations and site locations. The Australian government has implemented regulations regarding the minimum efficiency standards for housing and these initiatives to limit the carbon emissions have brought the question of energy use to the table, yet are they enough? This paper will explore the concept of cloned house designs in terms of energy efficiency and optimal siting and through computer simulation, evaluate how a cloned house design performs under different site conditions in Victoria.

International housing market analysis based on housing commencements

Additions to the aggregate housing stock are a broad measure of the state of an economy and overall level of confidence in a particular region over a designated period. This is due to the direct and indirect effect (e.g. employment in the housing construction industry) upon on the local economy and is linked to the confidence of local households in the future direction of housing investment, the level of housing affordability by households as related to employment levels and the relationship between supply and demand in each region. Another consideration is the ability of the government to monitor and successfully intervene in the operation of the household market (e.g. mortgage interest rates) with the intent of restricting an over-supply situation which may take years to fully recover. The analysis in this section examines new housing commencements for Scotland, Australia, USA and Canada over an extended time period with the specific focus placed on the periods before, during and after the high profile global financial crisis in 2007-2008. The graph in Figure 1 was adapted from data sourced from The Scottish Government (2013) and covers the 15-year period between 1998 and 2012. With the exception of 1999 there were been relatively few years with substantial additions to the housing market. However, the effect of the GFC can clearly be observed post 2007 although by 2012 there was relatively change from the previous year.

Embracing off-site innovation in construction in China to enhance a sustainable built environment in urban housing

With the rapid rate of urbanization and pressing need for higher levels of sustainable development within the built environment in China, the housing construction industry presently is facing urgency of shaping a sustainable construction process. This paper examines several sustainability challenges from the large-scale urban housing construction, and explores the connection between off-site innovation and sustainability within a context of China's housing construction industry. The study also identifies four pillars of strategy agendas that could enhance an enabling innovation environment for the ultimate goal of sustainability: (1) institutional environment, (2) public housing market, (3) organisational actions and (4) technological capacity. The knowledge and research findings presented in this paper would provide a ground framework that helps evaluate and assess the significances of off-site innovation to assist with a sustainable built environment.

Neoliberalism, economic restructuring and policy change : precarious housing and precarious employment in Australia

Housing, employment and economic conditions in many nations have changed greatly over the past decades. This paper explores the ways in which changing housing markets, economic conditions and government policies have affected vulnerable individuals and households, using Australia as a case study. The paper finds a substantial number and proportion of low income Australians have been affected by housing and employment that is insecure with profound implications for vulnerability. Importantly, the paper suggests that in Australia the economic gains achieved as a consequence of mining-related growth in the early 2000s were translated as greater employment security for some on low incomes, but not all. Enhanced access to employment in this period was differentiated by gender, with women largely missing out on the growth in jobs. For the population as a whole, employment gains were offset by increased housing insecurity as accommodation costs rose. The paper finds low income lone parents were especially vulnerable because they were unable to benefit from a buoyant labour market over the decade 2000–2010. They were also adversely affected by national policy changes intended to encourage engagement with paid work. The outcomes identified for Australia are likely to have been mirrored in other nations, especially those that have embraced, or been forced to adopt, more restrictive welfare and income support regimes.

Housing markets with foreign buyers

There are cities in the world which have experienced substantial numbers of foreign buyers in the local housing markets, thereby pushing up the real estate prices to the levels beyond the affordability of local residents. To suppress foreign influences in the forming of housing bubbles, governments have resorted to short-term measures of stamp duty or raising the duty rate for non-local buyers, increasing down payments and restricting or even forbidding non-local purchases. These new measures may help contain the demand for housing, but short of being the first-best optimal housing policy for an open economy with significant non-local and foreign buyers. We argue that the first-best policy is to tax non-local and foreign buyers and then use the tax revenue generated to subsidize domestic low- and middle-income buyers. The optimal tax rate under this compensated scheme is smaller than the tax rate under the lump-sum transfer of tax revenue to all residents. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Housing strategies that improve indigenous health outcomes

Housing is a key social determinant of health. The relationship between housing outcomes and health outcomes is bi-directional: housing affects healthoutcomes, and health affects housing outcomes. There are clear links between the quality and location of housing and health outcomes. The impacts of housing on health vary between geographic and climatic locations and contexts. There is a wide range of housing interventions that positively impact Indigenous health. One way of categorisingthese is: infrastructure improvements; addressing behavioural factors; and adjustments to policy environments.