EPFL Logo
fr|en
Login
Publication

Triggers for housing development

Philippe Thalmann
2008
Conference paper
Abstract

What leads to the development of residential construction projects? If the economic literature is to be believed, developers analyse market opportunities. However, it is difficult to assess those opportunities, for several reasons, e.g. long time horizon for developers who intend to remain owners of the completed dwellings and no coordination between developers. The latter problem concerns particularly developers who intend to sell their project upon completion (market developers). Is housing development really predominantly the result of market analysis? Micro analyses reveal that particular circumstances also play an important role: the availability of a particular piece of land, financing conditions, land regulation, etc. This article is designed to assess the shares of projects that are initiated on the basis of market analysis as opposed to other trigger factors. If that share is small, it is unlikely that house building can be explained or predicted with standard economic models of supply and demand. It also means that macroeconomic housing policy (lowering interest rates, subsidies designed to increase profitability, even rent deregulation) will not be very effective. A unique database was created by surveying 2,257 developers who built multi-unit residential buildings in the 1990s in Switzerland.

Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related concepts (41)
Home construction
Home construction or residential construction is the process of constructing a house, apartment building, or similar residential building generally referred to as a 'home' when giving consideration to the people who might now or someday reside there. Beginning with simple pre-historic shelters, home construction techniques have evolved to produce the vast multitude of living accommodations available today. Different levels of wealth and power have warranted various sizes, luxuries, and even defenses in a "home".
Multifamily residential
Multifamily residential (also known as multidwelling unit or MDU) is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other (side-by-side units), or stacked on top of each other (top and bottom units). A common form is an apartment building. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects.
Housing estate
A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex, housing development, subdivision or community) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, they often consist of single family detached, semi-detached ("duplex") or terraced homes, with separate ownership of each dwelling unit. Building density depends on local planning norms.
Show more
Related publications (38)

Costs of the energy transition and solution – Housing

Philippe Thalmann

The energy transition in Switzerland requires refurbishing 80% of the buildings stock, which will mobilize up to 70% of the construction workforce, leaving nearly no one to build new homes. How can we then accommodate 10.4 million people in 2050? ...
2024

Tiers of joy? Reserve tiering and bank behavior in a negative-rate environment

Andreas Fuster

Negative interest rate regimes typically involve reserve tiering to exempt a portion of bank reserves from negative rates. We study the effects on bank behavior of a large and unanticipated change in reserve tiering by the Swiss National Bank that generate ...
2024

Valuing the existing. Defining a procedure for a low-impact renovation; a case study on a typical apartment building built in the 1960’s in Geneva

Maria Loizou

Shifting “From Eco-anxiety to deep adaptation” has been the driving force behind the project “Valuing the existing”. This work focuses on understanding the nature of architecture in a future where there is less pollution and less harm caused by the constru ...
2023
Show more
Related MOOCs (2)
Interest Rate Models
This course gives you an easy introduction to interest rates and related contracts. These include the LIBOR, bonds, forward rate agreements, swaps, interest rate futures, caps, floors, and swaptions.
Soil and real estate economy
Quels sont les liens entre les prix fonciers, les prix immobiliers et les prix pour l'usage des immeubles? Est-ce que les prix immobiliers permettent de comprendre les prix fonciers? Ou l'inverse? Que

Copyright © 2025 EPFL, all rights reserved

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.