Abstract
Housing policies throughout most economies have witnessed a tectonic shift away from provider based solutions, to market-orientated provision leaving housing market performance the sole decision maker for access to housing. The recent boom and bust within housing markets have caused a significant decline in affordability and considerable concern for governments and policymakers alike. Indeed, the complex interaction between market processes can emasculate policy intervention making the potential remedies to addressing affordability obsolete. Although the problem of waning housing affordability has been widely discussed, the theoretical underpinnings of the concept, especially in a market context, have received less attention and there remains no common consensus as to how best conceptualise or measure housing market affordability.It has increasingly becoming evident that a more holistic and integrated approach is needed which provides an overall analysis and platform to define affordability in order to influence research and policy discourse. Given the increasing importance of affordability in housing policy reform, this study investigates and explains a new composite approach for measuring housing affordability. This thesis identifies the most important indicators and dimensions of affordability for first-time buyers accessing the market. It achieves this by linking the theoretical discussion of measuring affordability to the wider discussions surrounding the arcane property market.
The principal conclusions from this thesis demonstrate that the new components are more accurate than existing conventional measures, and represent a more holistic analysis of housing market affordability and key directions in which policy must turn.
| Date of Award | Aug 2010 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Stanley Mc Greal (Supervisor) & Jim Berry (Supervisor) |
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