This book focuses on the extent to which the globalization of international finance markets in the 1990s is being reflected in the changing conditions of the housing finance systems of Europe. It also assesses the likely impact of European integration on UK housing finance institutions. The publication is based on the proceedings of an international conference on European Housing Finance and the Single Market held at the School for Advanced Urban Studies in February 1993. It includes studies by leading experts into the differing institutions of housing finance in a number of European countries, including Sweden, Slovakia and the Netherlands, and recent examples of innovations in the finance of social housing. Against very different national backgrounds, similar trends in policy can be observed, involving reduced state provision and subsidy, and greater reliance on private sources of finance for both owner occupation and renting. The book highlights major emerging problems in housing finance especially risk, instability and negative equity.