Brick By Brick Volume 2 Better Housing Policies In The Post Covid 19 Era

Expanding on the findings of Brick by Brick: Better Housing Policies, this second volume delves into key trends shaping housing policies in the post-COVID-19 era. The first chapter provides an overview and discusses the need to monitor the pandemic's impacts on housing affordability, address the energy crisis through low-carbon housing initiatives, maintain financial resilience amid fluctuating housing cycles, and facilitate the reshaping of housing markets in response to remote work and environmental concerns.

Expanding on the findings of Brick by Brick: Better Housing Policies, this second volume delves into key trends shaping housing policies in the post-COVID-19 era. The first chapter provides an overview and discusses the need to monitor the pandemic's impacts on housing affordability, address the energy crisis through low-carbon housing initiatives, maintain financial resilience amid fluctuating housing cycles, and facilitate the reshaping of housing markets in response to remote work and environmental concerns. The second chapter focuses on the decarbonisation of the housing sector. It recommends a mix of carbon pricing, energy-efficiency certification and regulation, and subsidies to meet net-zero targets while accounting for housing market specifics. The chapter also calls for deploying complementary policies to limit adverse impacts on low-income households. The third chapter examines housing finance, focusing on the tension between supporting mortgage borrowing and promoting financial resilience. It also discusses the rise of non-bank real estate finance and the potential for mortgage finance to support housing decarbonisation. The fourth chapter explores how the new work-life balance, enabled by the rise of remote work, is reshaping housing demand and proposes a set of tailored urban policies to address this shift. Overall, the report provides a comprehensive blueprint for housing policies in the post-pandemic world

The report brings together evidence, international experience and policy insights for the design of housing policies. Emphasis is placed on three broad aspects: inclusiveness, efficiency and sustainability. Inclusive access to housing has become increasingly challenging in many OECD countries due to a large extent to rising housing costs, which reflects the failure of housing supply to meet demand, particularly in jobs-rich urban areas.

This report addresses housing inequities through a series of analytical chapters and case studies. The cross-country chapters examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on housing demand, develop a proposal for a green land value tax, evaluate the dynamics between fiscal autonomy and housing supply responsiveness, as well as explore the drivers of inter-regional migration.

The Slovak economy has been relatively resilient to the energy crisis, but growth has slowed amid high inflation, weakening foreign demand and tightening financial conditions. The pandemic and the energy crisis have deteriorated public finances; steady fiscal consolidation is now needed to rebuild fiscal buffers and improve long-term fiscal sustainability in the face of rapid population ageing. Sustaining economic convergence and facilitating inclusive structural change requires improving skill provision at all stages of the learning cycle, fostering the domestic innovation capacity and improving the business environment.

The OECD Territorial Review of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium, provides an in-depth assessment of the trends, challenges and opportunities for sustainable and inclusive urban development in the region.

After a slow recovery from the pandemic, the Mexican economy has navigated well the global environment of tightening financial conditions and heightened uncertainty.

After a strong demand-based recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, economic activity declined amid high inflation. Growth has restarted in mid-2023 and inflation is receding, but fiscal and monetary policies need to work hand-in-hand to fight remaining inflationary pressures and recreate fiscal space to finance future spending needs.