From rental to owner-occupied housing: access and mortgage risk at different spatial levels

This study explores how low-income individuals manage transition into homeownership across the urban hierarchy in a strongly pro-ownership context. We examine aggregate outcomes of two contrasting alternatives – moving into ownership promises housing career mobility and wealth accumulation at the cost of financial safety; staying in rental housing reverses these trade-offs. Our context is Norway, which we divide into four spatial levels: Oslo, second-order regions, third-order regions, and the rest of Norway. Using register data for 2015–2022, we estimate Cox proportional hazards models of transition to homeownership and subsequent mortgage risk, adjusting for demographic and socio-economic factors. The findings show a combination of slightly lower transition rates into ownership and substantially higher mortgage risk in Oslo, with similar but weaker patterns in second-order regions, particularly after adjustment for socio-economic factors. We relate these outcomes to features of the Norwegian housing system, notably the strong prioritisation of homeownership, and to wider forces including global economic conditions, regional disparities in economic structure, and ongoing urbanisation. We conclude with implications for housing policy, arguing for institution-based programmes that strengthen and diversify metropolitan rental markets.