Household mobility post-crisis

Abstract

Policy reforms in response to the crisis were initially expected to dampen future house price increases. Instead, the Dutch owner-occupied housing market has overheated not even five years after its recovery. As this could indicate a structural change in the housing demand of households, models were estimated using logistic regression analysis to examine how household mobility has changed following the crisis and position these changes in the context of macroeconomic and institutional developments. Based on the macroeconomic developments, the demand for owner-occupancy was expected to increase after the crisis. For one, the economy was gaining momentum rather than losing it, offering much better prospects for the near future. In addition, house prices were still relatively low and credit cheaper than ever, which greatly increased the accessibility of the owner-occupied sector for lower income households and offered interesting investment opportunities. Regarding institutional developments, the various reforms following the crisis are believed to cause an increase in the demand for affordable owner-occupied housing as a result of the tightened lending criteria in combination with the restricted accessibility of the social rental sector. In addition, the reforms are also expected to polarise households by widening the gap between the rental and owner-occupied sector through equity requirements. The results of the empirical analyses reveal a significant quantitative increase in demand with the intention to move nearly doubling from 21% in 2002 to 39% in 2015. The preference for homeownership itself, on the other hand, remained relatively stable. The most surprising development over time is the convergence of households from different income categories with respect to the intention to move, the preferred tenure, and desired purchase price. It is therefore believed that favourable macroeconomic conditions shortly after the crisis temporarily ameliorated the negative effects of the institutional changes. Further research is necessary to confirm whether the surge in the intention to move is merely a temporary effect of the crisis or an indication of a growing mismatch between housing demand and supply.