Calculated Affection? Charting the Complex Economy of Home Purchase

Smith, S. and Munro, M. (2008) Calculated Affection? Charting the Complex Economy of Home Purchase. Housing Studies, 23(2), pp. 349-368. (doi: 10.1080/02673030701875097)

Abstract

This paper highlights some widely cited but rarely elaborated 'local factors' influencing housing market dynamics. Adopting a microstructural perspective, the focus is on home purchase in order to complement a literature that often concentrates on the way properties are sold. Drawing from over 90 qualitative interviews from a single compact city, housing markets are characterised as collective calculating devices, whose networks of people, things, materials and relationships are engaged in the practice of price. It is argued that price is an affective as well as an economic affair, whose volatility is more an expression of sociality and emotional intelligence than an exercise in irrational exuberance.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Munro, Professor Moira
• Authors: Smith, S., and Munro, M.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
• Journal Name: Housing Studies
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 0267-3037