Overview

Institutions providing access to housing in all tenures have become further entrenched and exposed to financial risk. Literature on housing policy trends and financial risk cover drivers such as liberalisation, monetary approaches, innovation, political commitment, and asset management.

A conceptual model is put forward for framing housing policy trends that engage with financial risk (what risk and whose risk) – tested against national cases of United States, China, United Kingdom and New Zealand. Secondary literature findings for the New Zealand case show that there is tendency to focus on the downside financial risk of known probabilities, rather than seek out unknown upside financial risks that may have escaped detection.

Furthermore, it is argued that contemporary housing policy trends have incentivised institutions to take on greater financial risk. Further empirical work will generate primary data to quantitatively model in the New Zealand case, what and why there is financial risk, and institutional responses to housing policy trends.