Can’t Buy Me Home – Beliefs, Facts, and Policy in the Housing Affordability Crisis

Alda Botelho Azevedo (), Inês Gonçalves () and João Pereira dos Santos ()
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Alda Botelho Azevedo: Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa
Inês Gonçalves: Nova School of Business and Economics, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa
João Pereira dos Santos: Queen Mary University of London, ISEG – University of Lisbon, and IZA

No 191, GEE Papers from Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia

Abstract: Our study investigates public opinion on the housing affordability crisis in Portugal through a nationally representative survey combined with an information provision experiment. Participants were asked to identify perceived causes of rising housing prices, assess their factual knowledge of the housing market and sociodemographic trends, and indicate their preferred policy solutions, carefully framed to reflect trade-offs. Half of the respondents were randomly assigned to receive official statistical information on these trends before indicating their policy preferences. The findings reveal significant heterogeneity in beliefs about the causes of the crisis, pervasive misperceptions regarding market trends, and a limited impact of information provision on policy preferences. These results underscore the challenges of addressing housing policy through informational interventions alone and highlight the need for strategies that integrate behavioral and contextual factors to foster informed public engagement.

Keywords: Real estate prices; Information-provision experiment; Population; Tourism; Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F60 J18 R31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-06, Revised 2025-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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https://www.gee.gov.pt//RePEc/WorkingPapers/GEE_PAPERS_191.pdf First version, 2025 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mde:wpaper:191

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