This is a call for contributions to a special Article Collection to be published within  Regional Studies, Regional Science.  This is a new initiative for Regional Studies, Regional Science, and one which reflects the pressing need for better informed debate on this topic.

The SARS-CoV2 / Covid-19 pandemic triggered a diverse range of housing market shocks, adjustments and changed behaviours. Some of these trends were fanned, in many international contexts, by emergency economic stimulus policy interventions.

As the World navigated successive stages of the pandemic, several particularly notable trends emerged. For example, housing values did not crash as predicted by some commentators, researchers and strands of the media in the early stages of the pandemic – a time in which lockdowns were prevalent and large swathes of workforces were being stood down. Government-sponsored, debt-financed, income support measures were rolled out in many international jurisdictions, protecting jobs, incomes and indirectly offering enhanced housing security. Extraordinarily low levels of central bank set interest rates and unconventional monetary policy set the backdrop for booming housing market conditions. Unexpectedly rapid and strong macroeconomic recoveries in many countries completed the recipe.

Alongside these international and national/macroeconomic trends, sub-national and regional economies and housing systems have been re-thought and re-shaped during and throughout the pandemic. Other journals have published contributions that examined the changing demand for space suitable for working or learning from home, changing patterns of commuting and tele-working, or patterns in residential relocation. Others have empirically examined the impact of specific events such as periods of lockdown on housing markets and prices. Yet the literature lacks a coherent discourse taking stock of the post-emergency, longer-term impacts of the pandemic on sub-national and regional systems.

While it now seems clear that the concept of ‘post pandemic’ will never be defined either in simple terms or in relation to a specific date or dates, it is now timely to re-consider the implications of the pandemic on property investment decisions and patterns, housing system outcomes, and the relationship between sub-national economies and housing markets.

This Article Collection within Regional Studies, Regional Science is intended to develop and collate understanding of the connections between sub-national and regional change, and housing and property market systems and their outcomes. Of particular interest are shifts in residential and/or employer behaviour, residential relocation, and spatial change within or between urban and sub-national housing systems.

Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

• Re-imagining the housing and health nexus in the wake of COVID-19;
• The long term impact of pandemic on demographic change, and the implications for property markets;
• New patterns of urban growth and decline;
• Resilient regions, resilient housing markets;
• Shifting patterns of work and residence in larger and smaller cities;
• Access to home purchase after COVID-19;
• AirBNB, COVID-19 and shifting policy priorities;
• Shifts in attitudes to housing;
• Exploring the interplay between shifting regional and housing market dynamics; and,
• The end of trans-national housing consumption in a mobility constrained world?

To enquire whether a topic or spatial unit of analysis are in scope, please contact the inaugural Guest Advisor Professor Chris Leishman: chris.leishman@unisa.edu.au

Manuscript deadline: 31 July 2024

Professor Chris Leishman is a housing economist, and one of Australia’s and the UK’s leading housing researchers. Chris is best known for his work on modelling housing supply and housing need in Australia and the UK. He is an editor of the Urban Studies journal and a past Editor-in-Chief of the Housing Studies journal. He works extensively with government at national, state and local levels and is focused on research projects that make a difference to people either directly, or through influencing policy change. He has a particular interest in the use of quantitative methods and behavioural economics to understand housing systems and their outcomes.

 Disclosure Statement: Chris is an editor of the Urban Studies Journal and plays a prominent role in driving up the quality and volume of submissions in the area of housing economics. Given that Urban Studies has an explicit focus on urban issues, and RSRS has a focus on sub-national and regional issues, there should be little or no overlap of the target collections / submissions.

See the call on the journal page: Subnational and regional housing systems after the pandemic: understanding the post Covid implications of property investment and housing

All Regional Studies, Regional Science articles will be made freely and permanently available online through gold open access publication following payment of an Article Publication Charge (APC).

The standard article publishing charge (APC) for this journal is $1860 USD / £1460 / €1695 / $2540 AUD, plus VAT or other local taxes where applicable in your country. There is no submission charge.

A 20% discount on the APC is available for members of the RSA submitting to the journal. Please email office@regionalstudies.org for the discount code.