Effect of rising housing prices on relocation behaviour (Aug 2020)

• Housing affordability sets us apart: The effect of rising housing prices on relocation behaviour

• By Tim Winke, published in Urban Studies Journal, on 5 August 2020.

• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098020943482 (paid access)

• Abstract:

  • This study examines the effect of increasing local housing prices on the relocation behaviour of low- and medium-income households.

  • A unique data set is used that links online housing offers to the largest representative household panel in Germany.

  • Low-income households are more likely to remain in their current housing and sustain higher levels of housing cost burden. The explanation for their unwillingness to move is the inability to find an affordable apartment and the fear of being pushed out of inner cities. If they move, they relocate further out of the city centre and to neighbourhoods with high unemployment rates. Middle-income households remain in economically better-off neighbourhoods.

  • Rising housing markets facilitate socio-spatial segregation.

  • Rising housing prices have an impact on the population at different levels. Where people can afford to live can have lasting effects on their life chances. On the municipal level, disadvantaged neighbourhoods can suffer from high levels of crime and concentrated school problems. On the regional level, economic inequalities across regions might foster social and political polarisation.

• Keywords: geography of disadvantage, housing affordability, affordable housing, residential housing, housing, residential mobility, segregation, selective mobility, Germany.