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The emotional economy of housing

Christie, H.; Smith, S.J.

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Authors

H. Christie

S.J. Smith



Abstract

This paper offers an interpretation of the role of emotions in animating housing markets which complements more traditional economic and behavioural studies of locally based house-price inflation. Looking to debates within social psychology and cultural studies we suggest that emotions permeate the materiality and meaning of housing markets as well as the experience of individuals acting within them. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted in Edinburgh, with households who bought in a rising market, we argue that housing transactions are emotional as well as economic affairs. We reconsider the fears that underpin what might appear to be ‘irrational exuberance’ and we argue that housing markets are propelled by a search for returns on emotional as well as financial investments.

Citation

Christie, H., & Smith, S. (2008). The emotional economy of housing. Environment and Planning A, 40(10), 2296-2312. https://doi.org/10.1068/a39358

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Oct 1, 2008
Deposit Date Apr 22, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Environment and Planning A
Print ISSN 0308-518X
Electronic ISSN 1472-3409
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 40
Issue 10
Pages 2296-2312
DOI https://doi.org/10.1068/a39358

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Published Journal Article (170 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page(http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/openaccess.htm).




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