Housing Policy in Europe provides a comprehensive introduction to the economic, political and social issues of housing across the continent. The changing policy and practice of housing in fifteen countries from across Northern, Western, Southern and Central Europe are described, analyzed and compared. The book explains why different systems of tenure are dominant in different groups of countries, and the extent to which housing policies within these countries conform to different welfare systems. It reveals how owner-occupation has taken over from social housing as the chosen system of tenure and how this reflects a political and economic shift, from social democracy or communism to neo-liberalism across Europe.