Real estate agents (REAs) brokering rent contracts in Germany charged fees only to tenants but not to landlords until 2015. In order to relieve tenants from this burden, German law now requires REAs to only charge landlords. We suggest three reasons for why landlords’ brokerage fees are not...

Die Diskussion um die Mietpreisbremse hat die Mietspiegel in den Vordergrund gerückt. Mietspiegel sollen eine wichtige Informationsbasis für Mieter und Vermieter darstellen, doch faktisch werden sie kaum genutzt und für die Anwendung der Mietpreisbremse sind sie kaum geeignet. Zeit daher, die...

German regional policy has set the goal of creating equal living conditions throughout the country. According to the politicians, rent control should reduce the inequality within cities by stopping increases in housing costs, but it leads to increasing inequality among regions through other...

The standard view is that rent regulation leads to reduced maintenance as the landlord will be able to find tenants at the regulated rent even if the level of maintenance is low. In this article it is shown that the rent regulation system in Sweden interacts with a contract structure where the...

“Realising the right to the city – a a human right based framework for regeneration of areas of urban disadvantage.” In the second part of the articles three current Swedish cases are analyzed from a normative perspective to illustrate how a rights based approach can be implemented in a...

Extensive structural reforms since the early 1990s have strengthened the resilience of the Swedish economy to shocks. However, more needs to be done to better manage near-term risks and ensure that growth remains sustainable in the longer run. Reforming the housing market would reduce the risks...

We use new data from a rental brokers' multiple listings service to examine the contractual agreements between landlords and brokers. The data display two sources of variation in the way in which agents are compensated: 1) 69 percent of listings involve exclusive relationships between landlords...

The housing market figures among the main determinants of labour mobility, as households seldom make employment and housing decisions independently of each other. This interdependence is likely to strengthen as the cost of commuting increases, due to worsening road congestion or measures that...

Despite a high level of homeownership, the housing market in Poland is suffering from an important shortage. The difference between the number households and available dwellings, the number of dwellings per thousand inhabitants, and the availability of basic amenities (especially in rural areas)...

While several sectors in the economy have been deregulated, the Swedish housing market remains distorted, hindering an optimal matching of supply and demand. In the rental market the rent setting framework with its focus on cost-based rents in the public sector prevents a price response, leading...

After many years of decline, the private rental sector has increased in England, but remains a relatively small part of the housing market. Free market rents and weak security of tenure are widely regarded by private landlords and policymakers in England as essential preconditions for a...