President Barack Obama, in his annual address to the country last week, stressed the importance of keeping “the dream of homeownership alive for future generations of Americans.” One of the main ways he…
Dozens of homes and outbuildings have been destroyed in bushfires that have ravaged parts of South Australia reminding us again how poorly adapted we are to bushfire prone landscapes. With 15 years experience…
Australia’s residential house prices rank among the highest in the world, and an increasing number of aspiring home owners are finding themselves locked out of the property market. While low interest rates…
Over the past decade, drug use in the US has risen dramatically, with heroin use reaching epidemic proportions. The country’s policy for combating abuse has involved incarceration, abstinence-only treatment…
The government’s announcement that Bicester in Oxfordshire will be the site of a second new garden city, with plans for large-scale investment in housing and infrastructure should be exciting news. But…
The chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, has delivered the financial package he hopes will convince voters to deliver a Conservative majority in May 2015. Here, our team of academic experts responds…
There is a nice weather map cartoon by Matt featuring the UK characterised by the varied intensity of dinner table house price conversation. And it is not just that we are obsessed with property values…
The news that the British housing market may have reached a turning point, with one forecast showing a price fall in 2015 and a drop in London prices for the first time in three years, will have been welcome…
Tony Abbott is spending this week in North East Arnhem Land, part of his long-held hope “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. We asked our experts: what stories…
In the past six months the federal government has cut the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) and announced an inquiry into foreign investment in residential real estate. In both cases the government…
As UK house prices continue to head sharply higher, Bank of England governor Mark Carney thinks they represent the biggest danger to the economic recovery in Britain. They certainly pose a stern test for…
It’s Saturday morning in West Brunswick, a suburb in Melbourne’s inner north. From my bedroom window I can see a crowd gathering across the road for a house inspection. The crowd swells to 60 or so people…
Poverty and affluence are two sides of the same coin. One would not exist without the other – and both can be found concentrated in areas of extremes. And yet, when trying to create a better social mix…
Among the UK government’s pronouncements for the new parliamentary session were measures designed to boost zero-carbon home building in order to reap the benefits of lower emissions, lower household energy…
The city of Famagusta in Cyprus lies empty, as it has since the 1974 invasion that divided the island into north and south. The city its former inhabitants left behind is now a ghost town, streets overgrown…
Australia’s house prices are grossly overinflated – if you believe the International Monetary Fund’s recent analysis. It says radical policies are required to deflate this emerging housing bubble, such…
It is easy to see why people are talking about the possibility of another UK housing bubble, just six years after the last crash. House prices in London, for instance, have gone up 17% in the past year…
Just 43% of Germans own their homes – one of the world’s lowest rates. This reminds us that housing tenure has little to do with economic and social policy performance. So is the UK set to continue its…
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University
Professor of Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne