ABSTRACT
In virtually every reforming socialist economy in Europe, housing markets collapsed as the economies went into recessions and production shifted away from public sector production. Because housing services are responsive to changes in income, and particularly interest rates, a reduction in demand was to be expected given the turmoil of the transition. According to the analytical Model, the most significant policies that affect the housing sector in reforming socialist economies are fiscal, financial and real estate policies. On the financial side, policy reforms have supported the transition from a highly centralized and subsidized system of housing finance to a system driven by private initiative and delivery systems based on charging real cost of housing services to consumers. In 1995 the World Bank housing policy paper, Housing Policy: Enabling Markets to Work, by S. Angel and S. Mayo, used a series of housing market indicators collected in 53 cities around the world to support its arguments.
