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The purpose of this paper is to show how some of the assumptions about the current financial crisis are wrong because they misunderstand what takes place in the mortgage market.

The paper discusses four wrong assumptions: one related to regulation, one to leveraging, one to subprime lending and one to predatory lending. It briefly discusses some policy implications.

The role of the state in the mortgage market is more complex than suggested by those who blame the state for not doing anything. The concept of leveraging can explain, at least in part, why the losses in financial markets are bigger than the losses in the housing market. Many subprime loans were sold to prime borrowers. Subprime lending was not designed to increase homeownership rates, but to fuel profits by exploiting vulnerable borrowers.

It is too easy to argue that everyone made mistakes; most borrowers cannot be blamed for being sold risky, overpriced loans. A rescue plan is needed for defaulting borrowers and those already in foreclosure.

The paper does not present new research, but brings together research that demonstrates that the roots of the crisis in the mortgage market are in many ways different from what is suggested by professionals and journalists alike.

David Gordon’s early work included a focus on cities and their role in capitalist development, but he didn’t complete or publish an ambitious project called CAPITALopolis. Gordon instead developed a framework linking Marxian insights with historical analysis of institutional impact and change through his social structures of accumulation framework. Subsequent mainstream and radical urban analyses didn’t use Gordon’s work, but his early writings are consistent with his passion for fighting racial and economic inequality, and understanding those forces systematically as part of the history and logic of capitalism.

Housing policy is a key tool in urban development and has multiple functions that directly affect human welfare. This study aims to review housing policies in Iran from a critical perspective. In fact, the study and pathology of housing policies are considered in this research.

To advance this research, a quantitative (fuzzy TOPSIS and fuzzy AHP) method was used to rank the policies and the qualitative method (interview and literature review) was used for the pathology of housing policies.

The failure of policies to provide housing in Iran is decisive, but social housing policy has a relative superiority to other policies. Causes of failure of Iranian housing policies are as follows in a pathological perspective: commodification and speculative approach to housing; lake of social and physical sustainability; social stratification and classification; inconsistency with environmental conditions; non-indigenous nature of housing policies; exclusion of local institutions in the decision-making process; and the dominance of a populist perspective on housing.

This study is a comprehensive study because it has been extracted from the dissertation. By reading this study, the reader will be aware of the general conditions of the Iranian housing sector.

The aim of this Real Estate Insight is to comment upon commercial real estate research. Much of the current research on commercial real estate sits in academic silos, constrained by disciplinary boundaries and rejecting insights from other areas. This can lead to an impoverished understanding of the processes and practices that drive market behaviour.

This Real Estate Insight, through the lens of history, draws on insights from a century earlier and, in particular, from the work of Frank Ramsey; the paper argues that market behaviour is shaped by the role of key actors and persistent beliefs which need to be accounted for in our models of market practice.

The paper argues that current research paradigms need to accommodate agency explicitly into existing models and that real estate research will benefit immensely if researcher were more open in seeking ideas from outside the real estate field and to be more open to external ideas and concepts.

The paper suggests that property research needs to be more embracing of other academic disciplines to develop a full understanding of the numerous and various drivers within commercial real estate markets.

This is a review of how beliefs impact upon commercial real estate markets. As with many things, history can help researchers today get a broader and more appropriate perspective on market drivers and how they affect decision-making.

The purpose of this article is the discussion of a service-learning experience in architecture pedagogy, based on two core courses at a private university in Mexico. The aim is to identify learning opportunities, challenges and implications arising from engaging with inhabitants of an informal urban settlement with limited digital resources in La Campana-Altamira in Monterrey, Mexico.

The methodology selected is a case study approach, chosen for its effectiveness in architectural pedagogy to create knowledge through exposure to a particular phenomenon, as well as highlight positive teaching practices to facilitate replicability. Case-study methodology was also beneficial in this case because its openness and flexibility allowed for research of a variety of phenomena simultaneously, in this case, both the effects in the informal settlement community and in the academic one.

Findings revealed that opportunities outweigh challenges, and meaningful service and learning are possible in an online context, even when the service aspects take longer than the course length if there are long-term relationships between communities and institutions.

The value of the article lies in the need for flexible and sensitive approaches that put communities in the center, a critical path to identifying and understanding their needs and improving their contexts. This holds especially true given the rapid pace of worldwide urbanization and the ubiquity of informal urban settlements. Implementing service-learning approaches in informal settings using online tools, while sanitary restrictions are in place shows that meaningful experiences can be achieved, even when courses are short and resources are limited.

From the perspective of housing affordability, Portugal is an interesting case study, considering that Portugal ranks 5th in terms of price-to-income ratio and has experienced, since 2015, a significant increase in real estate prices.

The provision of housing is a critical social development factor. With the growing worldwide urbanization and the demand pressure over real estate in many cities, the problem of affordability has gained increase attention by policy makers. Housing affordability is hardly a new topic from a literature perspective, but the recent post-pandemic worldwide inflation growth has re-centered affordability as key topic in the housing agenda. This paper provides a comprehensive overview on past literature and a detailed analysis on the Portuguese market at the municipal level, by analyzing the changes in housing affordability in recent years.

Despite this growth, overall, affordability has improved. The study also shows the importance of municipal-level analysis, given the significant geographical differences. The authors' study confirms that many municipalities, outside metropolitan areas, exhibit low levels of affordability. Nevertheless, markets with higher average real estate values tend to exhibit even lower affordability, outpacing the higher levels of income.

Previous studies have focused on affordability issues on a national or highly aggregated level or focusing only on the two largest metropolitan areas in the country. This paper provides a deeper understanding on the inequalities of housing affordability between Portuguese municipalities.