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This paper assesses the relevance of mortgage-led consumption for the assemblage of home. Drawing on qualitative research completed in the UK, we show how the materials and meanings of owner-occupation are constituted by, and experienced through, the accumulation and deployment of secured debt. This is enabled by a particular financial regime, in which the proceeds of equity borrowing are freed for discretionary expenditure. Homes and their contents thus acquire the status of “debted objects”, and these form an interface between the financial and familial values comprising residential space. By attending to these mortgage-enabled purchases, we expose and evaluate the myriad ways in which equity borrowings animate the assemblage of home, adding value to property, linking domestic space with distant geographies and inspiring the art of dwelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the article "Explaining the Link between Housing and Health: All or Nothing?," which appeared in the periodical "Housing, Theory and Society" is presented.

The article offers the author's insights on the comments on her paper on housing economics where there is a substantive divide between economic and social research. She says that the first observation of Boelhouwer emphasizes theme that runs through her article such as the used of neo-classical approaches in explaining home price dynamics. She adds that the paper of Watkins and McMaster amplify her concern that the alliance of psychology and economics served to elaborate the orthodox position.

Housing is a hot topic for economists, sparking numerous lively debates. Many of these address the vexed question of price: its micro-economic foundations and its macro-economic effects. Notwithstanding significant achievements, however, economics has struggled to account for home price dynamics using tried and tested tools. At the same time, other disciplines, ostensibly well placed to contribute, have tended to stand back. As the analytical task becomes more urgent, this paper considers the scope for rapprochement. Can cross-disciplinary alliances help establish whether housing markets are driven by hidden hands, animal spirits or some other financial intelligence? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]