Housing Affordability in Austria - Operationalization and Demographic Components

Currently, Austrian housing markets face new challenges as house prices and rents are rising noticeably. Simultaneously, subsidised housing production declines. Therefore, housing affordability is gaining attention. This project measures and analyses housing affordability on a multi-dimensional scale, because measuring housing affordability goes beyond the traditional income-expenditure ratio. Based on previous literature, several housing affordability measures are constructed taking differences between renters and owner-occupants, qualitative aspects (location, size, year of construction) as well as the (changing) age structure of the population into account. Additionally, the current situation of Austrian housing markets (supply and demand factors) is considered. To a large extent, the analysis is based on micro data at the household level, where several surveys are statistically matched. Firstly, this detailed analysis intends to actively support Austrian housing policy makers and secondly, it brings up the (changing) age structure for aspects of measuring and distribution in the housing affordability discussion in academia.