ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents housing in the national economy framework and provides a description and analysis of demand and supply factors in the housing market. It describes the demand and supply sides together to characterise market equilibrium, and shows existing models of price estimation and highlights the challenges and issues. The book explains housing issues more formally into urban and regional contexts, with models of urban areas and land-use planning, and analyses the most important aspects of house price variation — locational or neighbourhood attributes. It deals with housing choices — weighs various options of owning and renting, and explores the standard search process of buying and selling a house. The book also deals with housing as an investment class — from the big institutional investors to foreign investors and to new forms of investment channels.
