The recent global crisis highlighted the risks stemming from real estate booms. This has generated a growing literature trying to better understand the sources and the risks associated with housing and credit booms. This paper complements and supplements the previous work by (i) exploiting more disaggregated data on credit allowing us to dissociate between firm-credit and household (and in some cases mortgage) credit, and (ii) by taking into account the characteristics of the mortgage market, including institutional as well as other factors that vary across countries. This detailed cross-country analysis offers new valuable insights.

This book examines the housing crisis in India and underlines the need for formal affordable housing markets. India is home to the world’s largest population of slum dwellers. The book examines actual causes of the problem, and the financial and political issues which underlie it. The volume: Analyses multiple perspectives on affordable housing from the points of view of slum dwellers, builders, facilitators, bureaucrats, and politicians Presents a fresh overview of the housing sector in India based on the conditions of slum dwellers in a typical, medium-sized, fast-growing city – Raipur, in the state of Chhattisgarh Puts forward radical conclusions, practical solutions, and policy recommendations for a formal affordable housing market in India This will be a major intervention for scholars and researchers of urban sociology, built environment, public policy, development studies, economics, political economy, institutional economics, and urban studies as well as policymakers, planners, and professionals in the urban development sector.

Rapid economic growth in South Asia, urbanization, and a rising middle class have created considerable pent-up demand for housing and housing finance. More than 14 percent of low-income South Asians have no home. In response, South Asia s dynamic housing and housing finance markets have grown at rates of around 30%, but are still limited to upper-income groups. The contribution of housing and real-estate sector to overall economic growth, social uplift and employment is considerable. Housing and housing finance services have the clear potential to expand to middle- and even lower- income families. This requires an improved land administration, strengthened legal framework for land titling, registration, and foreclosure, better market data provision, and promotion of long-term funding for mortgage lenders and developers. Innovative traditional mortgage products and Islamic finance could match demand in underserved market segments. This report, a first regional effort on the topic, examines housing shortages in South Asia, as well as outlines shortcomings of the market for home mortgages. Information on good practice and country-specific examples are presented on enabling builder/developers, mortgage lenders, land administration, as well as foreclosure and other relevant regulations, to strengthen home ownership in South Asia. Special emphasis is accorded to low-income housing solutions.

This open access book utilizes new data to thoroughly analyze the main factors currently shaping the African housing market. Some of these factors include the supply and demand for housing finance, land tenure security issues, construction cost conundrum, infrastructure provision, and low-cost housing alternatives. Through detailed analysis, the authors investigate the political economy surrounding the continent’s housing market and the constraints that behind-the-scenes policy makers need to address in their attempts to provide affordable housing for the majority in need. With Africa’s urban population growing rapidly, this study highlights how broad demographic shifts and rapid urbanization are placing enormous pressure on the limited infrastructure in many cities and stretching the economic and social fabric of municipalities to their breaking point. But beyond providing a snapshot of the present conditions of the African housing market, the book offers recommendations and actionable measures for policy makers and other stakeholders on how best to provide affordable housing and alleviate Africa’s housing deficit. This work will be of particular interest to practitioners, non-governmental organizations, private sector actors, students and researchers of economic policy, international development, and urban development.

The growth of financial markets has clearly outpaced the development of financial market regulations. With growing complexity in the world of finance, and the resultant higher frequency of financial crises, all eyes have shifted toward the current inad