A comparative study of housing affordability in South Africa using the adjusted Debt-Service Ratio and Price-Income Approach
Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Abstract
This study compares the adjusted Debt-Service Ratio (DSR) model and the widely used Price-Income Ratio (PIR) in the South African context to establish which of the measuring approaches give better and reliable results over time. In South Africa, housing unaffordability remains a challenge and accurately quantifying the extent of the problem is of key importance. The adjusted DSR model was seen as an appealing housing affordability measure to be explored as it corrects for household income changes and net financing cost of the mortgage loan thereof giving a refined calculation for housing affordability.
The research also explores the relationship of both the adjusted DSR and PIR to key macroeconomic variables, that is, economic growth (EG), mortgage rate (MR),
unemployment rate (MR) and house price (HPI). The findings show that the PIR is the better measure of housing affordability than the adjusted DSR. The PIR accurately parallels other banking sector data regarding housing affordability, whereas the adjusted DSR tends to underestimate housing affordability in the South Africa context. Another key finding is that, on average, the housing prices are too high for an economy like South Africa, which is still battling with, low GDP growth rate, high unemployment rate, inequality and poverty
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021
Keywords
Debt-Service Ratio (DSR), Price-Income Ratio (PIR, South Africa, UCTD
Citation
Mmesi, Lesotla. (2024). A comparative study of housing affordability in South Africa using the adjusted Debt-Service Ratio and Price-Income Approach [Master’s dissertation PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg]. WireDSpace.https://hdl.handle.net/10539/41344