This subject will be discussed in a seminar in Sölvhóll, the meeting room in the Central Bank of Iceland, on Tuesday 8 March at 15:00. Speakers will be Lúðvík Elíasson, economist in the Financial Stability Department of the CBI and Magnús Skúlason, CEO of Reykjavik Economics ehf.

Abstract: The growth of lending of the Housing Finance Fund and its predecessor will be decribed and some changes in their policies. Changes in the role of banks in the market for housing finance will be discussed. These changes influenced the price of housing, leverage of households and the financial collapse in 2007-2008. Policies that were introduced after the financial collapse and aimed at reducing the leverage of households will be discussed and some lessons drawn for the future arrangement of housing finances in Iceland. The speakers are authors of the chapter, Housing finance in Iceland: Milestones 1989-2014, which was recently published by Wiley Blackwell in Milestones in European Housing Finance (ed. Lunde & Whitehead).

The seminar will be in Icelandic.