Strategies and Policies for Dealing with High Housing Costs in Industrialized Countries

摘要

The report examines the three major elements in the cost of housing--building costs, finance costs, and land costs. It focuses on methods for strengthening the ability of the private sector to reduce or cope with high housing costs in the United States and other industrialized countries. Since World War II, building costs have been reduced substantially through productivity improvement, modular coordination, metrication, widespread use of model designs (typefication), and modernization and standardization of building codes. The most imaginative approach for coping with the problem of high mortgage interest rates has been the development of alternative mortgage arrangements different from the traditional, flat-rate, annuity system. Other tools to lower the price of housing include tax concessions, housing tax subsidies, and a contractual savings-for-housing plan. Governments have tackled the problems of high land prices by ensuring a steady flow of developed land on to the market, controlling the shape of urban development, and recapturing from private land owners some of the value created by rising land prices. Following the French approach, several countries have designated development zones to guide urban development and to cope with excessive land costs. Some foreign governments have used special taxes (The betterment tax, The capital gains tax) to help finance infrastructure investment and to lower the cost of land for social housing. Footnotes and tables are provided.