The impact of the financial crisis on European housing systems: a review

The global financial crisis has revealed that housing markets in EU are important causes of instability. As a consequence, financial systems have changed; through adjustments in regulations as well as through more careful mortgage management. Therefore, it is urgent to explore how the EU and its member countries have tried to recover by modifying housing finance markets. However, the crisis hit countries at different times and to a different extent. As a result housing market adjustments and government responses have also been different. This report focuses on two main elements: first, how house prices have moved across different groups of countries; and second, how governments and markets have responded to the crisis in terms of mortgage products, regulation and output levels.