Guest editorial

Citation

Lee, C.L. (2020), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 373-373. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHMA-06-2020-127

Special issue: housing issues in Asian countries (Part 2)

I am pleased to assemble and edit this special issue of “Housing Issues in Asian Countries”. A total of eight papers have been selected for publication in this special issue of the International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis. This is the second part of this special issue following the first part published in Volume 12, Issue 5. The papers range widely in their choice of topics including first home ownership, housing affordability, sustainable housing, housing policies and the linkages between housing and the broader economy.

The deterioration of housing affordability has been evident in recent years (Bangura and Lee, 2019). This is not confined to developed markets but also to developing Asian countries. Firstly, Soon and Tan’s paper examines housing preference and housing affordability in Malaysia. Specifically, this study highlights that housing in Malaysia, in general, is not affordable. Further, many desirable features are not considered by affordable housing development. On the other hand, Susanto and Njo focussed on first home ownership. They demonstrated the herding behaviour of first homebuyers in Indonesia.

Two papers have devoted to the integration between affordable housing and sustainable features. Both issues (i.e. affordable housing and sustainability) are equally important and should be integrated. Specifically, Krishna, Roshan and Sivapriya assessed and examined the incorporation of sustainability methods of construction through the study of a low-cost housing project, namely, Tamil Nadu Housing Board settlement in Chennai, India. Further, Poo, Thorpe and Goh identified the occupants’ collaborative image of housing energy efficiency in Australia.

In Zarghamfard, Meshkini, Pourahmad and Murgante’s paper, they investigated the causes of failure of Iranian housing policies with a pathological perspective. Several causes have been identified by Zarghamfard and his colleagues. Umar, Akhtar, Shafiq and Rao demonstrated that monetary policy has a significant impact on housing prices. They also found a unidirectional relationship between monetary policy and housing prices in Pakistan. Further, inflation also leads to higher housing prices, although stocks do not have a strong impact on housing prices. In Turkey, Korkmaz demonstrated that housing price leads to higher inflation rates in some Turkish regions, highlighting the importance of international evidence.

Finally, Yuan, Shen and Zhou used a micro-level data set that tracks the house price and consumption of a vast number of households in China. They found that housing prices will result in higher household consumption, although significant regional heterogeneity is documented. This implies the importance of regional studies.