<title>Abstract</title> This review concerns housing equity and the way it is used as a pension, across the member states of the European Union. Its starting point is a correlation between trends over time in home ownership rates and ageing populations. It is not primarily about the role of governments or of...

<title>ABSTRACT</title> Societies are trying to cope with ageing and the consequences of the global financial crisis. In most societies collective welfare arrangements for the elderly are under pressure, and drawing on housing equity can be considered as a potential source of augmenting one's pension and...

<title>Abstract</title> The economic life-cycle model assumes that households spread their income as well as possible over the life cycle (Deaton, 1992). They accumulate wealth throughout the life cycle and decumulate in old age. To date, however, results have shown that households tend to treat housing wealth...

Encouraging home ownership is an important aim of housing policy in many countries. It is supposed to have positive effects on individual households and on society as a whole. This article focuses on the effect of home ownership on former tenants of social rented housing in the Netherlands. The...

The private rental sector has been declining in many European countries. In describing the decline of the private rental sector, it is often suggested that a causal relationship exists between the decrease in private renting and rent control. The assumption is that the stricter the form of rent...

In an attempt to promote efficiency and consumer choice, many governments in Europe have in recent years required social housing organisations to be more market-orientated and competitive. Competition, however, is being discussed and implemented without any detailed examination of what is meant...

Social rental housing has once again captured a strong position on the Dutch political agenda. This has happened especially since the European Commission sent a letter to the Dutch government indicating that the Dutch social rental sector was not considered EU-proof from the viewpoint of the...

Home ownership sectors in most European countries have experienced growth in recent decades and by the mid-1990s the majority of EU15 households were home owners. While a great deal of attention has been paid to the rise in home ownership per se, the extent to which households in different EU...

This paper examines the experience of households in two adjacent countries, Germany and the Netherlands, both of which have relatively modest levels of home ownership but significantly different housing systems. Population growth is slowing down in Germany, while it is still increasing in the...

Safeguarding the affordability of, and thereby access to, housing is a key issue in housing policies across Europe. Housing allowance schemes have become a more important tool in pursuit of this aim in many countries during the past few decades. This themed issue reports on developments and...