Housing affordability: Beyond the income and price terms, using China as a case study

A comprehensive understanding of housing affordability is essential for developing policies to deal with deteriorating housing affordability observed in major market economies in recent years. This paper proposes a broader housing appropriateness concept with four dimensions affordability, accessibility, amenity and adequacy which goes beyond the price and income terms widely used in research to measure housing affordability. It puts forward that trade-offs may occur in these dimensions, resulting in dynamic shifts of housing problems from one dimension to another. Then a case study in Wuhan, China is applied to exemplify how trade-offs happen in specific national contexts. The results show trade-offs between affordability and adequacy among income-constrained consumers and between adequacy and affordability as well as accessibility for an affordable housing policy. These findings suggest that a more dynamic and holistic view is needed when evaluating housing affordability problems and developing policy strategies accordingly. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.