Housing uncertainty: socio-economic inequality and forex loans trajectories in the Bosnian housing market

Title:

Housing uncertainty: socio-economic inequality and forex loans trajectories in the Bosnian housing market

Creator:

Lofranco, Zaira T.

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:73683ab5-d95a-4046-9060-8b5fb7e03b26
uuid:73683ab5-d95a-4046-9060-8b5fb7e03b26
doi:10.13060/23362839.2022.9.1.544

Subject:

Bosnia and Herzegovina, inequalities, forex loans, general-purpose loans, and homeownership

Type:

model:article and TEXT

Format:

počítač and online zdroj

Description:

This article explores the nexus between the financialisation of housing and socio-economic inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). In this context, since the post-war economic reforms, driven by deindustrialisation, the precarisation of labour, and dependent financialisation, housing loans have become a ‘privilege’ for a restricted group of people with high and stable incomes. Instead, the housing aspirations of Bosnians are generally met with the aid of consumer loans and the ostensibly cheaper FX loans that were introduced in the mid-2000s. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, this paper highlights the enduring features of the polarised credit market in BiH. It particularly focuses on the period after the 2008 crisis when lending policies were only mildly re-regulated. FX loans never became the object of an ad hoc law to convert them to Bosnian convertible marks. This institutional approach has been unable to challenge the extreme class segmentation of housing finance and is still fostering indebtedness and precarious housing conditions among the lower-income segments of Bosnian society even after the pandemic.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
policy:public

Coverage:

87-97

Source:

Critical Housing Analysis | 2022 Volume:9 | Number:1

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false