The Housing Excutive's Research Unit has just published a new pilot examination of a local housing system for the Belfast Metropolitan Housing Market Area (HMA).

In association with the accompanying guidance manual, it provides a planning for housing tool, which will be used by Northern Ireland Housing Executive planners to form a template for similar studies of other housing market areas in Northern Ireland, as well as more locally focused studies for each of the Belfast Metropolitan housing sub-market area studies.

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The Belfast Metropolitan HMA is the main economic engine of Northern Ireland. It was chosen as a pilot case study because it is the most complex of the housing market areas in Northern Ireland. It also provides numerous lessons for the conduct of such studies elsewhere in Northern Ireland. It has also been at the centre of an unprecedented boom and bust housing market, the effects of which have spilled over into social and private renting, the land market and the sustainability of the wider economy.

Northern Ireland's housing market has faced severe problems of affordability and rising housing pressure at a time when the wider global economy and financial system has been in systemic crisis. It is essential that housing planners understand what is going on in the Belfast Metropolitan HMA, distinguish long trends from short term variations and better grasp the significance of the major challenges confronting the housing system.

(CD)