Emerging affordability problems in British housing have accentuated the role of parental support in facilitating entry to homeownership, with financial transfers and in-kind support smoothening transitions for many. This article explores housing trajectories, focusing on how dependency and autonomy are negotiated within and across generations in relation to gifts, loans and in-kind transfers for home purchase. It draws on the experiences of a group of young adults aged 25–35 and those family members who supported them in acquiring a home. We consider the nature of support, and how those giving and receiving it understand this exchange. We show that gifting for homeownership is an ‘ideal gift’, allowing givers to exercise moral control over the receivers by supporting a normalized tenure choice. Managing relationships of indebtedness between kin presupposes negotiations in which the maintenance of autonomy is paramount. The article examines four types of negotiations and their impact on intergenerational relations.

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This article analyses practices of intergenerational support for homeownership among different generations of families in Milan, Italy, highlighting the role of housing in family welfare relations and life-course transitions. It makes use of an original dataset of qualitative interviews investigating homeownership pathways and the negotiations of support that they pre-suppose. The article explores the meanings and moral reasoning behind the decision to accept (or not) support in context of contemporary discourses surrounding the liquidity and availability of housing and finance. It highlights the moral compromises and emotional negotiations inherent in the giving and receiving of support for housing, contributing to a body of literature concerned with the reproduction of home and family. Furthermore, it stresses the importance of homes and housing assets in mediating dependence and re-affirming family bonds within a family-oriented welfare context, despite conflict, resistance and frustrated aspirations.

Tax foreclosure offers an opportunity to investigate processes of disinvestment in the city. Prior research has not considered how tax foreclosure administration protects or further damages neighborhoods where foreclosure occurs. Detroit's loss of households led to disinvestment in housing and demolition of structures. In addition, at each of the three stages of property foreclosure and disposition, implementers took actions that promised to encourage disinvestment in property by facilitating the spread of blight and encouraging negative externalities. This occurred because (1) foreclosures took many owner-occupied properties; (2) the sale of properties to government entities was small and did not promote reuse; and (3) the foreclosure auctions disadvantaged purchasers who would become owner-occupants, channeled properties in strong neighborhoods to investors at low prices, and sold properties disproportionately to destructive buyers.

In the context of mounting housing market pressures and an international swell in the formation of non-family households, especially among younger-adults, this paper examines share house (shea-hausu), an increasingly popular form of shared private rental housing in Tokyo. We frame our study in relation to shifting socioeconomic and demographic conditions affecting single, young Japanese adults, their aspirations and life-courses, as well as forms and practices in Japanese housing. We elaborate on the way shea-hausu are provided, and discuss three sets of techniques that together configure shea-hausu as a product distinct from other forms of renting, but also re-script sharing as a particular kind of 'desirable living' among single young adults. Furthermore, we show how shea-hausu both enables the pursuit of new experiences of 'home' and further entrenches traditionalist views of the needs and wants of solo dwellers.

In comparison to other advanced economies, the rise of people living alone in Japan has been late and rapid, with singletons now accounting for almost half of all households in major cities. The normative and structural frameworks surrounding standard familyhousehold formation, however, remain formidable, reducing lifecourse opportunities for non-family formers. This paper considers the household and housing pathways being negotiated by younger-adults living independently. In addition to various secondary data sources, we draw on qualitative interviews with 35 individuals from 28 Tokyo households in addressing manifestations of, and resistance to, atomisation and individualisation in the Japanese context. Our analysis focuses on meanings and practices of homemaking among renters and buyers in the growing sector of single-person dwellings, as well as the recent emergence of commercial shared housing. This analysis provides a contrast to discourses surrounding the "singles boom" and "the growing appeal of living alone" in Western cities.

The housing context has a profound influence on how different generations within families negotiate dependence and independence. This article investigates the nature of intergenerational relations during early adulthood housing transitions. We consider an original dataset of qualitative interviews with young adults and their parents living in and around Amsterdam, where recent housing market liberalisation is challenging home‐leaving norms. We find that while strong norms regarding early home‐leaving and independence persist, market conditions prompt significant intergenerational support to sustain this “independence.” Support for renting and homeownership are part of different intergenerational dynamics. The first marks a process of easing into adulthood, whereas the latter solidifies new sets of relationships between fully adult generations supporting one another on equal terms. Despite professed individualization in Western European societies, the analysis of early adulthood housing transitions show that intergenerational dependencies can emerge in specific housing markets, requiring creative approaches to support young adult autonomy.