Based on the work of Karl "Chip" Case, who is renowned for his scientific contributions to the economics of housing and public policy, this is a must read during a time of restructuring our nation's system of housing finance.

The central role of the housing market in the recent recession raised a series of questions about similar episodes throughout economic history. Were the underlying causes of housing and mortgage crises the same in earlier episodes? Has the onset and spread of crises changed over time? How have previous policy interventions either damaged or improved long-run market performance and stability? This volume begins to answer these questions, providing a much-needed context for understanding recent events by examining how historical housing and mortgage markets worked—and how they sometimes failed. Renowned economic historians Eugene N. White, Kenneth Snowden, and Price Fishback survey the foundational research on housing crises, comparing that of the 1930s to that of the early 2000s in order to authoritatively identify what contributed to each crisis. Later chapters explore notable historical experiences with mortgage securitization and the role that federal policy played in the surge in home ownership between 1940 and 1960. By providing a broad historical overview of housing and mortgage markets, the volume offers valuable new insights to inform future policy debates.

Although Japan and the United States are the world's leading economies, there are significant differences in the ways their wealth is translated into living standards. A careful comparison of housing markets illustrates not only how living standards in the two countries differ, but also reveals much about saving patterns and how they affect wealth accumulation. In this volume, ten essays discuss the evolution of housing prices, housing markets and personal savings, housing finance, commuting, and the impact of public policy on housing markets. The studies reveal surprising differences in housing investment in the two countries. For example, because down payments in Japan are much higher than in the United States, Japanese tend to delay home purchases relative to their American counterparts. In the United States, the advent of home equity credit may have reduced private saving overall. This book is the first comparison of housing markets in Japan and the United States, and its findings illuminate the effects of housing markets on productivity growth, business investment, and trade.

Praise for Emerging Real Estate Markets "In this book, you'll discover how to snatch real estate opportunities at low prices, before their value becomes common knowledge. Buy all the copies on the bookshelf before your competitor does!" —Frank McKinney, "The Maverick Daredevil Real Estate Entrepreneur" and author of Frank McKinney's Maverick Approach to Real Estate Success "I've never seen another real estate book even come close to laying out a profit road map the way this one does. If your local economy is too hot or too cold, Lindahl's guide will show you how to invest in the up-and-coming markets with the greatest profit potential." —Stacy Kellams, President, www.RealEstateCourseReviews.com "Lindahl shows you how to look into the future and see where the next hot real estate markets will be. It's the closest thing I've found to a real estate crystal ball." —Jeff Adams, President, www.FreeRealEstateMentoring.com "The brilliant thing about this book is Lindahl's approach to investing by 'remote control.' He has a real-world system for living in one place and making money from investments in another." —William Bronchick, attorney and coauthor of Flipping Properties "In the crowded field of real estate gurus, Lindahl stands head-and-shoulders above the rest. This book is must reading for any serious investor—beginner or veteran." —Justin Ford, author of Seeds of Wealth and Main Street Millionaire

A global look at the reasons behind the recent economic collapse, and the responses to it The speculative bubble in the housing market began to burst in the United States in 2007, and has been followed by ruptures in virtually every asset market in almost every country in the world. Each country proposed a range of policy initiatives to deal with its crisis. Policies that focused upon stabilizing the housing market formed the cornerstone of many of these proposals. This internationally focused book evaluates the genesis of the housing market bubble, the global viral contagion of the crisis, and the policy initiatives undertaken in some of the major economies of the world to counteract its disastrous affects. Unlike other books on the global crisis, this guide deals with the housing sector in addition to the financial sector of individual economies. Countries in many parts of the world were players in either the financial bubble or the housing bubble, or both, but the degree of impact, outcome, and responses varied widely. This is an appropriate time to pull together the lessons from these various experiences. Reveals the housing crisis in the United States as the core of the meltdown Describes the evolution of housing markets and policies in the run-up to the crisis, their impacts, and the responses in European and Asian countries Compares experiences and linkages across countries and points to policy implications and research lessons drawn from these experiences Filled with the insights of well-known contributors with strong contacts in practice and academia, this timely guide discusses the history and evolution of the recent crisis as local to each contributor's part of the world, and examines its distinctive and common features with that of the U.S., the trajectory of its evolution, and the similarities and differences in policy response.

Spatial fixity is one of the characteristics that distinguishes housing from most other goods and services in the economy. In general, housing cannot be moved from one part of the country to another in response to shortages or excesses in particular areas. The modelling of housing markets and the interlinkages between markets at different spatial levels - international, national, regional and urban - are the main themes of this book. A second major theme is disaggregation, not only in terms of space, but also between households. The book argues that aggregate time-series models of housing markets of the type widely used in Britain and also in other countries in the past have become less relevant in a world of increasing income dispersion. Typically, aggregate relationships will break down, except under special conditions. We can no longer assume that traditional location or tenure patterns, for example, will continue in the future. The book has four main components. First, it discusses trends in housing markets both internationally and within nations. Second, the book develops theoretical housing models at each spatial scale, starting with national models, moving down to the regional level and, then, to urban models. Third, the book provides empirical estimates of the models and, finally, the models are used for policy analysis. Analysis ranges over a wide variety of topics, including explanations for differing international house price trends, the causes of housing cycles, the role of credit markets, regional housing market interactions and the role of housing in urban/suburban population drift.