Browsing Working Papers (FI) by Author "Lunde, Jens"
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Lunde, Jens (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Housing markets in several countries are suffering. The prolonged and strong housing price rises of recent years have turned around. Historical records suggest that housing price drops may happen slowly but be large. Housing prices continue to fall because capital losses have substituted capital gains, housing equities are falling, and housing price expectations have become negative. Household debt had increased to the same degree as housing prices or even more in some countries. Access to mortgage and credit had improved and lenders used "cruise control” when financing still higher housing market prices. Now, housing demand is further weakened because access to credit has been tightened. During a downturn, owner-occupiers’ housing price risk is increased and a growing number of owners have negative equity and payment troubles. Under these conditions, arrears and foreclosures will be widespread in owner-occupation. The effects on the wider economy of a housing price downturn are discussed. Not only does the lenders’ increased credit risk lead to tightened credit access, losses threaten the banks and can create financial crises. Falling housing prices clearly depress the housing market and housing construction activities and thereby the contribution of residential investments to economic growth, while it is less obvious that average housing consumption and residential investments over the whole cycle are affected. The reduction of non-housing consumption as a result of a wealth effect is a reality for years for depressed owner-occupiers but in the aggregate, the housing wealth effect is more dubious. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7141 Files in this item: 1
wp 2008-1 jens lunde.pdf (199.0Kb) -
Lunde, Jens (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Abstract. In Denmark, taxation of residential property returns varies considerably with the type of ownership and type of tenure in terms of the way income is calculated, the types of taxes applied and tax rates, which range from 0 % to above 60 %. Together with other housing subsidies this disparity in taxation contributes to the pronounced lack of tenure neutrality in the Danish housing market. The paper illustrates how tax rules alone create distortions and imbalances in the housing and residential property markets and discusses as well the magnitude of the imbalances. The method used is the application of a set of return and user cost equations. The tax aspects of the long-standing rather unequal treatment of private rental dwellings, social rental dwellings, owner-occupied dwellings and private co-operative dwellings, which have drawn decisive tracks in the markets, are discussed. The lowering of the tax rate for the return of institutional pension savings to 15 % which came into effect in 2001 has created a substantial advantage for pension funds compared with private investors with regard to investments in rental residential properties. The owner-occupiers’ user costs and subsidization are shown to depend on their capital structure and to a large extent they depend on whether the owners’ most obvious savings alternatives are either personal investments with heavily taxed returns or institutional pension savings with lightly taxed returns. Also private co-operative associations are tax exempted, and this fact in combination with the prospects of improved legal conditions for raising loans to finance the individual apartments will almost certainly lead to this form of tenure – as "tax free ownership" – capturing part of the market for owner occupation. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7154 Files in this item: 1
2004_3.pdf (276.5Kb) -
Does negative equity exist as a permanent feature in the Danish housing market?Lunde, Jens (København, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: House and flat prices have been through a tremendous bust and boom cycle in Denmark. From 1986 to 1993 real prices for houses and flats dropped by one third on average, foreclosures accounted for around 1/6 of the house and flat turnovers in numbers, and in reality the market for owner-occupied houses and flats was in a crisis. Initiated by a strong interest rate drop and by an expansive finance policy, the market turned. From 1993H1 to 2004H1 real house prices increased 76% and real flat prices 128%. Moreover, Denmark has a leading position in the international household debt race and as in many other countries the fear of the consequences of a strong interest rate increase for the housing market is widespread. Therefore, in order to examine the financial stability among owner-occupiers, a sample of approx. 40,000 owner-occupier families with data at household level has been drawn from the tax statistics for each year from 1987 to 2003. Through the analysis it is shown that the distributions of the owner-occupiers’ capital structure, measured by the net liability/housing wealth ratios, have more or less been the same throughout the 16 years, even during the long-lasting steep house and flat price rise. Moreover, since 1994 the median value of the net liability/income ratio has increased by 71% for all owner-occupiers and by 54% for owner-occupiers between 30-39 years of age.Finally, one last, important aspect of the financial stability of owner-occupiers, namely, their capacity to service their debt has been analysed. The owner-occupiers’ net interest expenditures/ income ratios before tax have been nearly halved from 1987 to 2003. Most of the drop happened during the years of the "housing market failure". From 1994 on the ratios were more slightly reduced and were in 2003 at 8.8% (median value) for all owner-occupiers and 12.2% for owner-occupiers between 30-39 years of age. However, if the reductions of the tax rates for deducting interest expenditures are taken into account, the 2003 after-tax-ratios are only about 2 percentage points below the 1987 after-tax ratios. At March 2005, a new challenge facing Danish owner-occupiers is that 50% of their mortgages carry interest adjustment. Keywords: house prices, housing wealth, real estate wealth, housing debt, mortgage debt, personal wealth, personal finance, loan-to-value, debt-to-income, interest expenditures, interest-to-income, financial stability. JEL classifications: D 14, E 44, G 21, R 20, R 31. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7197 Files in this item: 1
endeligt_wp_jens_lunde_2005_3.pdf (1.494Mb)
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