Loneliness in Malta: Findings from the first National Prevalence Study

Loneliness has been examined by an increasing number of scholars, being implicated in numerous detrimental outcomes for mental and physical health. However, most loneliness prevalence studies have focused on particular age groups, thus overlooking how loneliness differs across the lifespan. This study assessed loneliness prevalence in a nationally representative sample ( n = 1,009) of the Maltese population aged 11 years and above using the 11-item De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale, while also identifying associations between loneliness and sociodemographic factors. Results demonstrate that 43.5% of the Maltese population experiences some form of loneliness. The association between loneliness and age demonstrates a nonlinear relationship, with elevated loneliness rates among adolescents, which decrease slightly in early adulthood, before slowly increasing from age 35 onward. Loneliness is also significantly associated with education level, employment status, household composition, mortgage payment status, perception of income, presence of a disability, active citizenship, as well as self-rated physical health, coping ability, and subjective wellbeing. These findings indicate that loneliness is experienced in significant rates across the lifespan, and intervention efforts should be targeted toward individuals of all ages.

Demand of Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure Bonds for Municipal Development

The presented study examines the crucial problem of our time — the need to develop an infrastructure mortgage mechanism that would maintain and reproduce infrastructure resources.Aim. The study aims to consider the possibility of using infrastructure bonds for public-private partnership projects.Tasks. The authors determine the features of infrastructure bonds, briefly analyze foreign experience of their use, and outline an infrastructure municipal loan.Methods. This study uses general scientific methods of cognition to consider the possibility of using infrastructure bonds for public-private partnership projects.Results. Infrastructure bonds issued for public-private and municipal-private partnership projects can serve as a financial tool for infrastructure development or as a mortgage payment. Infrastructure bonds should be long-term and targeted, issued for the corresponding infrastructure projects. A competent approach to the preparation and implementation of an infrastructure loan requires the issuer’s professional agents to formulate the optimal loan concept and then put this concept into practice based on the optimal issuance parameters determined according to loan marketing among potential investors.Conclusions. The issuance of infrastructure bonds will make it possible to meet the demand of publicprivate partnerships for investment resources and sustainable investment projects. An infrastructure mortgage scheme should accommodate the interests of both the investor and infrastructure users.

A Reliable Time Lock Encryption Scheme For Relatively Weak Computational Resources

Time-lock encryption is a type of encryption in which the process is bound by a factor of time that enables previously impossible applications such as secure auctions, mortgage payment, key escrow, or fair multiparty computations. Existing solution approaches of time lock either employ computational overhead to calculate time or use analogues to map the real-world time, hence lacks reliability. We propose a reliable time-lock encryption scheme, where even receivers with relatively weak computational resources can decrypt the cipher after an accurate real-world deadline, without any interaction with the sender. Proposed solution uses time fetched from timeservers over secured https channel for time lock accuracy and strong AES-256 encryption/decryption techniques for reliability. The paper briefly discusses a java based prototype implementation of the proposed approach and the experimental results

Price Bubble Metrics for Single-Family Housing

Home-price indexes for several metropolitan areas show real prices well above their pre-Great Recession level. Further, CoreLogic’s Market Conditions Indicator has identified more than one-third of metropolitan areas as possibly overvalued, the highest share in a rising price environment since 2003 and raising concerns of an upcoming national valuation bubble. This article presents four indicators to monitor overvaluation tendencies for metropolitan areas: price-to-income ratio, price-to-rent ratio, mortgage payment-to-rent ratio, and home flipping activity. The first three metrics measure overvaluation, while the fourth measures speculative fervor. Taken together, if multiple metrics indicate overvaluation, coupled with a surge in speculative investment, then there is a greater risk of a future price decline. These metrics indicate that there is little risk of a national price bubble in 2018, but parts of southern California, southern Florida, and the Puget Sound area do have heightened overvaluation risk.

The politics of creditor–debtor relations and mortgage payment strikes: The case of the Uruguayan Federation of Mutual-Aid Housing Cooperatives

Mortgage debt and concomitant forms of financial expropriation continue their largely uncontested expansion across the social terrain. The atomisation of debtors and commodity fetishism are two key factors that underpin this process. The collective and partially de-commodified character of mutual-aid housing cooperatives in Uruguay and their conflict-ridden mortgage debt relations provide a contrasting, reverse mirror image. This paper analyses how in the case of a collective debtor, the spatial fixity and temporal uncertainties that result from the establishment of mortgage debt relations can work against the creditor. Housing cooperatives make up a geography of spaces that are opaque to the creditor, in the sense that mortgage debtors cannot be individually identified and pursued. Once homes are constructed and inhabited, the creditor’s debt claims can be collectively challenged. In the context of the most recent mortgage payment strike (2001–2011) carried out by the Uruguayan Federation of Mutual-Aid Housing Cooperatives, what is presumed a voluntary contract between equal parties is revealed as a power struggle between owners and non-owners of capital. This atypical case provides an opportunity to empirically attest to the political nature of creditor–debtor relations, often rendered socially invisible due to the extreme power imbalance between counterparties.

Other People's Houses: The Social Life of Mortgage Delinquency and Default

While falling behind on a mortgage loan has significant personal consequences, we know little about whether the experience of delinquency or default influences the housing market behavior of other people in the defaulter’s social networks. In this paper, I ask how exposure to mortgage default through social networks affects perceptions of the housing market, judgements about the strategic default behavior of other households and expectations for homeownership. Although individuals purposively draw on information from their social networks to aid in their housing search, theories of social influence have yet to be applied to the negative experience of mortgage delinquency or default. Drawing on the National Housing Survey, I find that individuals exposed to mortgage delinquency through their social networks express more negative expectations for the housing market and hold a more permissive opinion about strategic default. Homeowners reporting network exposure to mortgage strain are more likely to prefer rental housing when they next move. These results are strongest when individuals are connected to someone who has fallen behind on a mortgage payment in the previous three months.

Sustainable housing financing model to reduce South Africa housing deficit

Purpose This study aims to identify and establish effective housing financing concepts to be adopted by government in achieving its mandate of providing sustainable affordable housing for the poor to decrease the building of shacks, as well as proposing solutions to the housing deficit in South Africa. A rise in demand and shortage in supply of housing calls for the need to address issues of affordable housing in South Africa, and developing countries in general, to ensure a stable and promising future for poor families. Design/methodology/approach Literature has revealed that the South African government, at all levels, accorded high priority to the provision of low-cost housing. Thus, government has adopted subsidy payment as a method of financing affordable housing to ensure that houses are allocated free to the beneficiaries. This also addresses the historically race-based inequalities of the past, but unfortunately, this has not been fully realised. This study uses a sequential mixed method approach, where private housing developers and general building contractors were the research participants. The qualitative data were analysed using a case-by-case analysis, and quantitative data were analysed using a descriptive statistical technique on SPSS. Findings The results of the qualitative analysis reveal a gross abuse of the housing subsidies system by the beneficiaries of government-funded housing in South Africa. This is evident from illegal sale of the houses below market value. This has led to a continual building of shacks and an increased number of people on the housing waiting list instead of a decrease in the housing deficit. The results from quantitative analysis affirm the use of “Mortgage Payment Subsidies, Mortgage Payment Deductions, Down-Payment Grant and Mortgage Interest Deductions” as viable alternatives to subsidy payment currently in use to finance affordable housing projects by the South African Government. Practical implications At the moment, the focus of the South African National Government is continual provision of free housing to the historically disadvantage citizens, but the housing financing method being used encourages unapproved transfer of ownership in the affordable housing sector. This study thus recommends the use of an all-inclusive housing financing method that requires a monetary contribution from the beneficiaries to enable them take control of the process. Originality/value The relational interface model proposed in this study will reduce pressure on government budgetary provision for housing and guarantee quick return of private developers’ investment in housing. Government must, as a matter of urgency, launch a continuous awareness programme to educate the low-income population on the value and the long-term benefits of the housing.