The historical long-term volatility and return on investment in single-family dwellings was investigated and compared with investments in equity, bonds and T-bill markets. Total return index for equity and fixed-income security indices were obtained from available sources, of course, a proper index for measurement of long-term changes in house prices was unavailable. In an effort to measure the house price changes, a relatively homogeneous pool of houses in the downtown Toronto area was selected and its price tracked over the study period of 44 years. Inflation rate affects the return of investments in everything similarly therefore this was not considered in the calculations. Results of comparing the investment of cash in one's family home versus in other investment vehicles showed that the ratio of investment growth to its volatility for a single-family house exceeded the ratios for other investments by a large margin.

The historical long-term volatility and return on investment in single-family dwellings was investigated and compared with investments in equity, bonds and T-bill markets. Total return index for equity and fixed-income security indices were obtained from available sources, of course, a proper index for measurement of long-term changes in house prices was unavailable. In an effort to measure the house price changes, a relatively homogeneous pool of houses in the downtown Toronto area was selected and its price tracked over the study period of 44 years. Inflation rate affects the return of investments in everything similarly therefore this was not considered in the calculations. Results of comparing the investment of cash in one's family home versus in other investment vehicles showed that the ratio of investment growth to its volatility for a single-family house exceeded the ratios for other investments by a large margin.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

This thesis aims to identify the motivating factors driving consumers home purchase decisions from the consumer's point of view. Although there is an abundance of past real estate research, dating back as far as the 1920's, the factors shaping consumers home choice have not been fully explored. Past research has tended to assume that homebuyers arrive at a decision following a logical and rational decision making process. These studies have also tended to focus on utilitarian or economic factors shaping home choice. Although past research has unquestionably added to the understanding of home purchase behaviour, the focus on utilitarian and economic factors does not explain decisions that are underpinned by deep-seated motives. The present thesis extends past research by exploring the less tangible, non-economic aspects of home choice in order to provide a fuller story of why and how people consume homes. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the unsolicited motives underlying consumers' home choices, therefore, a qualitative technique known as ZMET was employed. Based on the notion of unconscious thoughts, ZMET uses visual images gathered and/or generated by consumers to elicit and probe the metaphors that represent their thoughts and feelings. For the present study, 14 consumers who had recently placed an offer on a home took part in the ZMET interview. The present methodology extends past property research which has predominantly taken a quantitative approach. The findings of the study provide a rich insight into the motivations behind consumer home choice. Firstly, it reveals that the pre-purchase checklists used by many homebuyers and real estate agents are inaccurate representation of consumer home choice, and explains why this is so. Secondly, it demonstrates the influence of twenty four motives, including three central constructs (space, nature and views) on consumer home choice and highlights the fact that autobiographical memories underpins many of the motives to impact on choice. Thirdly, it provides a model mapping out the interaction between utilitarian and hedonic motives, which evokes a network of feelings, sensations and emotions that shape consumer home choice. In doing so, the research provides theoretical insight into the link between the rational information-processing model and the experiential view of hedonic consumption in home purchases. This study has shown that a specific set of utilitarian and deep-seated hedonic factors interrelate to culminate upon one's home choice. The findings in this study maintain that while utilitarian factors are significant determinants of home choice, in themselves, they do not always tell the whole story. This new knowledge of how and why homebuyers chose what they did is valuable to practitioners in predicting accurate property demands and value. Real estate agents can-sell more effectively by matching a property to a homebuyer's hedonic needs. The information in this study also helps homebuyers understand that their home choice is guided by internal images and deep-seated motives derived from many years of past experience but more importantly, they can decide if these motives justify the price they pay for the property. Finally, the model gives future researchers a new framework to access meanings necessary for understanding homebuyer choice and allows a closer examination of the mechanics of these influences on the housing market and its demands.

This study uses content analysis and a controlled experiment as data generation methods to investigate the precise nature of the largely unexplored relationship between the content of real estate news and activities in the real estate market. The theoretical base of the research is Kahneman’s two system view (2003) of cognitive processing, which is applied to an individual’s decision-making about the residential real estate market. The affect heuristic provides the theoretical basis for studying the relationship between the emotional content of local media information and decision making in the residential real estate market. The research question seeks to measure the “framing effect” of news on real estate market activity. It is posited that the way local real estate news is framed will influence transaction prices and the number of pending sales. A behavioral approach is utilized to understand the underlying relationship between a residential real estate market and a news article to audiences; an effect called frame setting. It is conjectured that when media coverage about the real estate market is negative there is more downward pressure on the market compared to when media coverage is more objective and includes descriptive statistics on the current real estate market.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

This paper studies the effect of government measures on Hong Kong’s property market. Government intervention appeared to describe the involvement and engagement of government in property market. Nowadays, the problems of supply-demand imbalance exist in Hong Kong’s property market, leading to high property price. The government is liable to intervene in the market in order to maintain the stability of economy and society. For demand-side measures, the government introduced three property cooling measures on stamp duty taxation adjustments and successfully stabilized the overheated residential property market. For supply-side measures, the government regularly initiated the role of Annual Land Sale Programme. The resumption of Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) in 2011 also increased the supply of housing to middle-income households and youngers to fulfill their aspiration of homeownership. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect public responses on the above government measures and results showed that most of the respondents supported the above government measures. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

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