Netherlands journal of housing and the built environment

This study extends our understanding of the influence of proximity to retail grocery provision on housing rental prices. To achieve this, extensive data on the size and location of retail outlets are combined with neighbourhood rental values for small areas across a two year period, together with varied contextual data for each area. In order to control the influence of many confounding variables in the determination of housing rentals, the technique of propensity score matching is applied. This provides a sophisticated means for the comparison between areas where there is substantial natural variation, rather than manageable controls. For a variety of types of retail brands, only a significant relationship is found between the proximity of a Premium retail outlet and the housing rental value. The findings of this research allow local planning officers to further understand the impact of planning applications on the potential for gentrification and the affordability of neighbouring housing.

Prior literature has shown that blacks have lower rates of homeownership, lower amounts of home equity, and experience lower housing appreciation than whites. This paper examines racial differences in the returns to homeownership using a longitudinal survey of middle-aged homeowners. We find that home equity appreciation is much lower for blacks between 1994 and 2004, however blacks with high incomes do not experience the same home equity gap. While there are regional differences in negative racial effects, high income blacks are able to avoid those as well. We find that among those who acquire the largest increase in home equity, being black is not detrimental. We also find that even when we account for differences in home equity growth, racial differences in wealth growth persist.

The incomplete or defective information on the listed housing quality may impair the market clearing processes, may lead to the adverse selection and would have its reflection in the data needed to perform market analyses. To pinpoint the existing information gaps, this paper inspects the quality-related information disclosure strategies of agents who list apartments for sale or rent in online listing platforms. The first part of the empirical study compares the direct declarations of the listed housing quality with the quality indirectly signaled via photos attached to listings and shows that there extists a discrepancy between them. Combined with the high share of observations, for which the full information on quality is not being disclosed it contributes to the existence of informations gaps. The second part of the study answers, whether indirect textual quality signals (descriptions of apartments), processed with the use of Wordscores—a supervised machine learning algorithm are consistent with visual quality signals. It has been documented, that the sales listings’ quality signals have agreed in 63–90% of cases, depending on the model’s variant. For the rental market, the descriptive quality signals have matched the visual ones in 71–83% of cases. Moreover, it has been shown that among rental listings the consistency has been higher for listings posted by landlords, while for sales listings—by brokers. Finally, it may be argued that to fill the existing information gaps one may utilize the often-unused information conveyed via textual quality-signalling channel.

In 2015 the Housing Act was revised in order to further regulate the social housing sector in the Netherlands and thereby improve the steering possibilities for the central government to coordinate housing associations. This included local performance agreements for social housing policy obtaining a legal status. By introducing this policy instrument central government seeks to facilitate and ensure the tri-partite cooperation between municipalities, housing associations and tenants’ organisations in order to release funds by housing associations for social benefit. This should improve the position of municipalities and tenants’ organisations in social housing, and improve legitimate policy making. In this paper the main research question is: How are local performance agreements implemented targeting increased societal legitimacy in local social housing policy making, and what are its strengths and weaknesses in three selected cases in the Netherlands? A case study research design was used involving three local embedded case studies. As a theoretical framework the Contextual Interaction Theory was used. Data collection involved expert interviews and review of policy documents. Results reveal several weaknesses that impede the implementation of performance agreements, including issues in the broader governance regime and context, as well as issues with the inter-organisational structure and stakeholder interaction regarding the tri-partite cooperation between the key actors. This has to do with the precarious role of the tenants’ organisations in the process, and the local housing policy as the basis of local performance agreements. Results also show that implementation of performance agreements is more difficult in cities with dense urban areas.

‘To increase the number of inhabitants’ is a commonly stated top objective in municipal strategies across European countries. Not differently in Austria, local policy follows a logic of growth as financial tax and redistribution systems reward according to population figures; but is demographic growth necessarily financially beneficial for a municipality, irrespective of the type of land use changes, and potentially urban sprawl, that it triggers? The Federal State of Lower Austria offers to its municipalities a strategic online planning tool to pre-assess eventual municipal infrastructural costs and tax revenues that would come with certain population increase. This study tests the Lower Austrian infrastructural cost calculator and, in so doing, seeks to add a spatial perspective to an otherwise oversimplified financial calculation of planning for growth. The case study municipality of Michelhausen formulated an ambitious objective of 25% population growth (+ 700 inhabitants) within a few years in its local development strategy, to be realised by enlarging a rural settlement area. The study will assess five possible alternatives of settlement enlargement with varying housing types for their municipal financial consequences. In conducting this case study, the infrastructural cost calculator, a strategic planning tool offered by the federal planning authority of Lower Austria to their municipalities, will be assessed for its current potential as well as possible enhancement as strategic planning instrument to support municipalities in financial questions when developing building land. Normative lessons drawn from the whole exercise directly address actors and decision-makers in local and regional planning context in Lower Austria. The study ends with a short outlook of possible learnings and transfer into other national and international planning practice contexts.

To investigate the risk factors associated with bedbug infestations among Hong Kong households, self-reported questionnaires in Chinese were distributed online between June 2019 and July 2020. The questionnaire collected data on participants’ sociodemographics, history of bedbug infestation, and housing situation. Among the 663 participants who completed the questionnaire, 422 (63.7%) have experienced bedbug infestations in the past year, they were concentrated around the Kowloon region. Weighted bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression were performed to identify the statistically significant (p value < 0.05) factors associated with bedbug infestations. Bivariate analysis shows a positive correlation between the number of reported dilapidated housing features and bedbug infestation. For multivariate analysis, those aged 45–64 (OR = 2.53, 95% CI 1.30–4.91), have primary education or below (OR = 9.43, 95% CI 3.12–28.44), and monthly household income ≤ HKD30,000 (OR = 1.69, 95% CI 1.15–2.5) were more likely to have bedbug infestation compared to their respective reference groups, i.e., ≥ 65, tertiary education, and > HKD30,000; housing risk factors identified are living in subdivided flats (OR = 16.53, 95% CI 1.01–269.72), crowded household (OR = 1.55, 95% CI 1.06–2.28), having second-hand furniture (OR = 2.97, 95% CI 1.16–7.58), housing cleanliness issues (OR = 2.66, 95% CI 1.13–6.25), and presence of bedbugs in neighbouring residential units (OR = 3.32, 95% CI 1.57–7.04) or on the streets (OR = 1.9, 95% CI 1.12–3.23). This study has identified lower income, lower education level, crowded household, living in subdivided flats, and certain dilapidated housing features to be risk factors of bedbug infestations; efforts and policies should prioritise vulnerable groups and focus on addressing the housing risk factors identified in this study.

In the last century, the concept of what can be heritage has expanded in definition, opening to everyday architecture and living environments. More recently, the group of stakeholders to be involved in heritage assessment and management has slowly grown, with authorities acknowledging that heritage significance lies in the representation and identification for people and that people could help define it. Studying the significance of everyday residential neighbourhoods and the inclusion of individual responses creates a demand for new methods. Although in heritage studies these methods remain undefined, studies on housing preferences offer starting points for new approaches. This paper presents a significance assessment of an everyday living environment by its residents, from a new heritage perspective. By analysing individual responses, this research discusses more inclusive methods of assessing significance. A neighbourhood in the Dutch town Almere, is used as a case study. Based on a survey in diary format, residents’ appreciation of their living environment is analysed using values-attributes and means-end theory. Results show that assessments of individual residents consist of chains of tangible and intangible attributes. The paper proposes a new analytical model, the ‘Web of Attributes’, which visualizes residents’ responses and reveals the diversity and relations between the attributes best appreciated in a specific living environment. The Web of Attributes can serve as visual reporting in statements of significance, for listed and non-listed neighbourhoods. By combining theories from housing preferences and heritage significance assessment, this novel research explores narrow the gap between the assessments of heritage and everyday neighbourhoods.

The article presents the speculative frame method for analysing the real estate market, identifying market tensions, small shocks and price bubbles. The method relies on time and price data series. In the speculative frame method, time is expressed by the horizontal parameter of the frame with a fixed interval, and house price dynamics is denoted by the vertical parameter that changes over time. The frame sequence is analysed to determine the rate of changes in housing prices. The main advantage of this index-based approach is that it diagnoses the real estate market in real time. The method was presented on the example of Polish housing markets and under simulated market conditions. The time series of home prices were analysed in Wrocław (the fourth largest Polish city) during dynamic price increases in 2002–2012, as well as in Warsaw (the Polish capital) in 2016–2018 during a period of market stability. Research limitations were identified, and robustness tests were conducted. The study demonstrated that the speculative frame method can be used as a rapid screening method for analysing a market’s performance based on house price dynamics.