Plot acquisition for self-build housing
Abstract The process of plot acquisition, development and construction of house is very complex in the private unserviced land market due to lack of information, high dependence on land brokers and inadequate institutional arrangements for land development and plot sales. The case of Bhubaneswar City in Eastern India is used to highlight the issues connected with plot acquisition and house building and to explain the factors required to be strengthened in the overall context of planned development. Specifically the pattern of ownership, process of land subdivision, transaction, transfer, development and final use for house construction are looked at. The study suggests curbing land prices, and intensifying infrastructure and service facilities, and indicates the need for the revision of the existing planning regulations to streamline the control mechanism.
Land and Housing Transactions in Tanzania: an Evaluation of Title Risk Vulnerabilities in Kinondoni Municipality Dar es Salaam
Despite the presumed negative relationship between formal land titles i.e. Land Title Quality (LTQ) and transaction uncertainty i.e. Transaction Failure Risk (TFR), empirical evidence on the same and on TFR’s most vulnerable groups in developing countries is lacking. This paper bridges that gap based on survey data on 1514 owners of incremental housing from Kinondoni Municipality, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The analysis is based on binomial logistic regression models which were implemented to predict both credibility- and title-induced TFRs at the time of purchase. The findings suggest that vulnerable groups to TFR include female-headed households and older people who transact informally, purchasers of properties in well developed but periphery areas, those lacking stronger social connections to support their purchase decisions in both formal and informal areas and distant purchasers (from their respective residency at the time of purchase) buying informally. Furthermore, it is noted that as long as the majority property purchasers perceive a relatively higher title than credibility-induced TFR at purchase, transaction deterrence is mostly attributed to informality in land titles rather than the presence of unscrupulous informal real estate agents or untrustworthy property sellers. Formalisation of land titles in the municipality may therefore benefit property market participants i.e. by reducing perceived TFR only if the majority of property holders have or use title to facilitate transactions. Massive formalisation of properties through systematic adjudication is therefore favoured than sporadic adjudication of land rights for a healthy property market.
The Use of Qualitative Information in Macro-Economic Policy Analysis
The majority of macro-economic policy models takes for granted that conflicts among objectives can be assessed by means of a tradeoff analysis. Such tradeoffs imply that sacrifices and benefits of various impacts of decisions can be measured on a cardinal scale, so that a conventional macro-economic utility or welfare analysis can be applied.