The Institute of Public Finance will organise the conference Housing affordability: what is new? in Zagreb, Croatia, on 26 September 2025. The conference aims to provide greater clarity on the current state of conceptual, empirical and policy analysis of housing affordability; assess trends, knowledge, and data gaps, and identify key policy trade-offs and appropriate roles for the public and private sectors within the European institutional context.
The conference will feature an invited keynote lecture, paper presentations, and expert panels, including representatives from European institutions as well as the fields of architecture, urban/spatial planning, and the construction industry.
Some of the topics that will be addressed at the conference include:
- Stylised facts on housing affordability: To what extent are we facing an affordability crisis? What is its nature? Who is affected? What are some common misconceptions?
- New methods and findings in affordability measurement; strengths and weaknesses of different measures;
- New data sets on house prices and rents, housing typology, social housing, dwelling uses and locations, changing circumstances of individuals and households over time, vulnerable population groups;
- New challenges for housing affordability: remote work, changing household demographics, population ageing, labour force migration, tourism, climate change;
- Interactions between agglomeration externalities, housing affordability, labour costs and labour mobility. How far can housing affordability affect growth and competitiveness? Are these effects large enough to justify policy interventions?
- Planning and assessment of housing need and demand; housing stock in light of green transition and need for decarbonisation of construction;
- Drivers of private and public sector residential investment and supply of affordable housing; the role of spatial and urban planning and land-use regulations; the role of rent controls;
- Construction sector productivity: measurement, trends, outlook for improvement;
- Taxation of residential real estate, second homes, rental income and properties, transfer and inheritance of property titles;
- New evidence on the effectiveness of housing policies: demand side vs. supply side policies; promoting homeownership vs. rental housing; government interventions vs. facilitating market outcomes;
- Institutional, political and socio-cultural constraints on reform of housing policies.
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