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Homeownership has been the main focus of housing policies in most countries. Typical means that households use to achieve homeownership is to take out a loan and supplement this with accumulated wealth for a downpayment. This paper aims to analyze the mortgage demand behavior of households in the UK, Australia and Japan.

Using three panel data sets, HILDA for Australia, KHPS for Japan and USS for the UK, the paper estimates three equations using ordinary least squares: mortgage demand function, housing demand function and initial loan to value ratio function.

Though homeownership is a preferred tenure and the mortgages are “recourse” loans, housing markets in these three countries operate in different mortgage market institutional structures. Results indicate that income elasticity of mortgage demand differ despite income elasticity of housing demand being similar. Different mortgage institutions in countries that pose constraints for borrowers also determine mortgage demand. Other factors such as demography and economic conditions have also played an important role in determining mortgage and housing demand.

The paper is first, to the authors’ knowledge, that explores the role of institutions in mortgage demand in a comparative framework for the UK, Japan and Australia.

This paper examines the extent of the short-run relationship between Australian real estate investment trusts (A-REITs) and direct real estate returns on both a commercial property sector and a prime and secondary grade basis, i.e. a subsector basis.

Two-step methodology is used. First, we identify the dynamic interdependencies between A-REITs and each commercial property subsector to determine whether the returns of A-REITs lead each subsector or vice versa. Second, short-run deviations between these asset returns are estimated by measuring their individual response behaviours to changes in key economic and financial market factors that are expected to influence these returns.

Results suggest that each subsector shares a unique relationship to A-REITs, given each prime and secondary grade commercial property return series varies in behaviour. Some property subsector returns can be predicted by movements in A-REIT returns, whereas returns for others move independent to changes in A-REITs. Similarly, some subsectors commove with A-REITs in response to changes in certain market factors, whereas others diverge. As such, these findings have practical significance to fund managers and portfolio selection, as each commercial subsector embodies its own exposure to A-REITs and vulnerabilities to market forces. Subsectors that commove with A-REITs in response to certain market forces may be used as substitutes in a portfolio. Alternatively, subsectors that diverge from A-REITs in response to market forces may offer diversification benefits when combined.

These findings extend beyond existing research to offer critical decision-making guidance at the acquisition level, as fund managers may more closely consider the impact that prime or secondary grade properties within a given commercial sector may have on a portfolio that consists of public and private Australian real estate. Ultimately, a more informed acquisition may be carried out as consideration of a property's asset grade allows for a deeper insight into the property's risk profile and its anticipated short-run impact on a portfolio.

This paper extends previous studies that focus mostly on aggregate or sector-level returns by measuring REIT and real estate dynamics at the subsector level, allowing for practical significance at not only the portfolio level but crucially at the acquisition level, a pivotal decision-making stage for fund managers. This is also the first paper to study REIT and real estate causality and response patterns to changes in market factors at the Australian sector level.

The purpose of this study was to explore strategies used by developers of master-planned housing development projects in Victoria, Australia, for obtaining certification under the Urban Development Institute of Australia’s (UDIA) EnviroDevelopment (ED) sustainable development certification programme. To be awarded ED certification, a development must demonstrate that it meets the assessment criteria within at least four of the six ED “leaves”. These leaves relate to its performance in terms of energy, water, materials, waste, community and ecosystems. This study explored how developers make choices regarding sustainability features they build into the planning, design and management of their developments to gain the leaves needed for ED certification. Having this certification is valued by developers as it can be used to demonstrate the sustainability credentials of their developments to potential house buyers, the validity of which is backed up by a trusted independent non-profit organisation (UDIA).

The study sought to quantify the preferential weightings of nine developers in selecting ED “leaves” and the strategies they use for meeting the assessment criteria needed to obtain selected ED leaves. This was done using a novel data collection and analysis method, the analytical hierarchical process (AHP), which relies on respondents, in this case, developers of ED certified development projects, making pairwise comparisons between choices of different development factors associated with the different ED “leaves”.

The most highly preferred ED leaves were found to be community, energy and ecosystems. “Community facilities” and “on-site transportation” were the two most highly weighted factors associated with the community leaf. Energy, the next most preferred leaf, was most highly weighted on “saving on operational costs” for the consumers (home buyers). Here consumer demand factors seem to be driving preferences. The ecology leaf was the next most preferred, with “existing site conditions” being the most highly weighted factor for this leaf. For sites that already contain significant areas of indigenous habitat, such as wetlands, selecting this leaf would seem to be an attractive, and potentially lower cost, option. Existing ecologically significant natural areas that are preserved, and where necessary enhanced, can be used for marketing purposes and serve in fulfilling planning open-space contribution requirements. The developers were more indifferent to the water, waste and materials leaves; however, the water leaf was rated slightly higher than the other two and was most strongly associated with “recycled water” and opportunities for “water conservation”, another example of demand factors driving preferences.

The results of this study reveal the preferences of a small sample of developers in terms of how they weigh different factors in making decisions about acquiring sustainability certification for residential master-planned development projects through the UDIA’S ED programme. The findings provide insight into the types of decisions developers make in the process of seeking ED certification, which includes considerations of site characteristics, costs, predicted effectiveness of different interventions and usefulness for marketing and other factors in terms of which ED leaves to pursue and how to acquire them to gain ED certification. The study also tested the AHP method as a methodological tool for addressing this question. Modifications in how data are collected using the on-line survey can be made to allow the method to be more easily used with larger respondent sample sizes. Collection of more focussed data elicited from respondents with specific areas of expertise, for example, specialists in energy, water, landscape architecture and planning, ecology and other relevant areas of knowledge, should also been considered.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors that affect the performance of projects being implemented on the public-private partnership (PPP) framework, with specific reference to urban drinking water sector in India.

A listing of factors that have a bearing on project performance have been developed based on a review of the literature. Through a survey, seven factors that are relevant to the Indian context were determined. Interviews were then conducted across a cross-section of government agencies, financial institutions, development agencies, private sector entities and consultants to understand the relative importance of these attributes. The analytical hierarchy process was used to develop relative weights of these factors.

Ranking and relative weights of the factors in descending order are stakeholder consent and support for water PPP projects (22.1 percent), appropriate project structure (17.4 percent), availability of realistic baseline information (16.2 percent), reasonable water tariffs (13.9 percent), public sector capacity (13.0 percent), well-developed market (9.5 percent) and water sector regulator (7.9 percent). Differences in perceptions amongst various stakeholder groups were also found.

Water sector has not matured, and with the advent of newer formats of implementation models, there could be significant changes in the sector. As the number of projects available for study is limited, this exercise can be undertaken periodically and updated in relation to experiences in other infrastructure sectors.

This analysis provides inputs to policymakers and project proponents for structuring more sustainable urban drinking water PPP projects.

Indian infrastructure PPP market is attracting increased attention from researchers, though not much emphasis is being given to urban drinking water sector. This paper aims to contribute toward filling this research gap.

This paper aims to explore principal drivers affecting prices in the Australian housing market, aiming to detect the presence of housing bubbles within it. The data set analyzed covers the past two decades, thereby including the period of the most recent housing boom between 2012 and 2015.

The paper describes the application of combined enhanced rigorous econometric frameworks, such as ordinary least square (OLS), Granger causality and the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) framework, to provide an in-depth understanding of house price dynamics and bubbles in Australia.

The empirical results presented reveal that Australian house prices are driven primarily by four key factors: mortgage interest rates, consumer sentiment, the Australian S&P/ASX 200 stock market index and unemployment rates. It finds that these four key drivers have long-term equilibrium in relation to house prices, and any short-term disequilibrium always self-corrects over the long term because of economic forces. The existence of long-term equilibrium in the housing market suggests it is unlikely to be in a bubble (Diba and Grossman, 1988; Flood and Hodrick, 1986).

The foremost contribution of this paper is that it is the first rigorous study of housing bubbles in Australia at the national level. Additionally, the data set renders the study of particular interest because it incorporates an analysis of the most recent housing boom (2012-2015). The policy implications from the study arise from the discussion of how best to balance monetary policy, fiscal policy and macroeconomic policy to optimize the steady and stable growth of the Australian housing market, and from its reconsideration of affordability schemes and related policies designed to incentivize construction and the involvement of complementary industries associated with property.

This paper assesses the lending risks associated with the level of total household indebtedness at the local authority level across the UK.

Using GIS-based Exploratory Data Analysis and mapping, the paper identifies local concentrations of household borrowing, both secured and unsecured, which is referenced against regional Gross Added Value.

Significant local differences are revealed which are tracked over the period 2013–2019. Total debt relative to the size of economy is larger in London and local authorities around London. A positive correlation was revealed between areas of multiple deprivation in England and those local authorities with proportionally high unsecured lending, confirming that the less well-off require access to debt facilities and in the absence of availability of secured loans, resort to unsecured borrowing.

Understanding where the additional lending risks are located across the UK is relevant when evaluating the robustness of the economy to recession, with its uneven effects on different sectors and households and the impact of monetary policy changes, particularly sharp rises in interest rates. The mapping of these risks is illuminating and aids understanding.

Property often forms the biggest component of household wealth and assets. Irrespective of landowners’ willingness, the act of compulsory acquisition abruptly ceases the security that this ownership carries. This often induces dissatisfaction among affected landowners over the: loss of “property rights”; loss of commodity, or property; and loss of future opportunities associated with the property. Though there have been attempts in various land acquisition laws and a practice to compensate acquirees for their loss, the dissatisfaction of acquirees has persisted. The persisting resistance of landowners compels deeper insight into the process of compulsory purchase and the compensation mechanism to understand underlying causes for resistance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of involvement of these different stakeholders, at various stages in the compulsory purchase process, using stakeholder interaction analysis. Results obtained from this research will be helpful in identifying the gaps in the process of compulsory purchase of land for public projects in Australia.

A survey of ten different stakeholder groups has been conducted to inquire the level of interaction of different stakeholders at various stages of compulsory purchase process. A comparative study was then performed to identify the gaps between the advocated process (suggested in the literature) and the process adopted by stakeholders.

The results illustrate that: affected landowners seek involvement at the initial stage when the project plan is under preparation and compulsory purchase declaration are not finalised; objectors (from the public) seek opportunities to convey, to the public agency, their views even though the accountability of public agencies towards this stakeholder is nil; and strong interactions are established during negotiation over the compensation amount thus signifying the urge of acquirer and acquirees to avoid monetary losses and time delays.

This research will be useful in identification of pain points in the compulsory purchase process for public projects. This shall help in evolution of fairer mechanism of land acquisition.

The purpose of this paper is to examine information and volatility linkages among real estate, equity, bond and money markets in Australia.

A novel rational expectations framework of financial contagion (Kodres and Pritsker, 2002), along with a combination of robust statistical methods including simple and dynamic correlations and generalized impulse response (Fereidouni et al., 2014) have been employed using data covering three dynamic pre-pandemic economic cycles, namely, global financial crisis (GFC) period, pre-pandemic housing boom and pre-pandemic housing downturn from 2008 (February) to 2019 (December).

Results reveal information linkages across real estate, equity, bond and money markets through correlations in return and volatilities of these series. Finding indicates that the three financial markets (equity, bond and money markets) are interdependent and integrated through information and volatility linkages during the GFC period and pre-pandemic housing downturn period. Financial markets have stronger associations with real estate market during pre-pandemic housing boom. The findings contribute to the general notion that the performances of three financial markets are closely related to the “boom” phase of the real estate cycle.

This research provides an extension of existing literature regarding the information and volatility contagion of the expanded set of core investment markets in Australia. The findings could assist household buyers and investors in designing strategic investment portfolios/hedging strategies and minimizing asset specific risks through diversification over short-term and long-term. In addition, results could support the maintenance, growth and development of a combination of competitive balanced investment markets including real estate, equity, bond and money markets in post-pandemic economy.