Urban Housing Markets in Central and Eastern Europe: Convergence, Divergence or Policy 'Collapse'

The focus of this paper is on the effects of housing privatization reforms in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s in the context of policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. The paper analyses the similarities and differences between Central and Eastern European countries in the process of housing privatization as a consequence of the specific historical 'pathdependency' process, economic and institutional development, cultural and political choice. Housing privatization is an urban phenomenon and the effects of housing reforms are mostly visible in large (capital) Central and Eastern European cities. Housing privatization reforms attempt to promote market efficiency and distributional equity objectives in the operation of (urban) housing markets. These effects are mostly visible in the form of: tenure change, differentiation in house prices, use of the housing stock, management and maintenance activities, mobility, residential differentiation, property rights regulations (i.e. zoning, rules, property register, condominium law, tax, etc.) and institution building and strengthening. It is argued that housing privatization reforms in Central and Eastern Europe did not achieve the stated objectives. The only objective that has been fulfilled is the control over budget expenditure for macroeconomic reasons, and rise in home ownership. The overall performance does not support 'convergence' towards establishment of efficient and equitable markets, but rather a 'policy collapse' with significant effects on polarization between and within urban housing markets in Central and Eastern Europe.