Institutions influence the meanings people share regarding the environment as well as governing the interactions between them. The formation of property value can never therefore be either ëtotally subjectiveí or ëtotally objectiveí by nature. The planning process is a specific type of institutional influence: non-uniform, being under constant flux, and having a deterministic starting point. Planning is furthermore linked to housing market outcomes, and to analyse this linkage necessitates multi-layered analysis. In this study we have three goals: first, to show how ëold institutionalistí understanding of market processes is still pertinent amidst the recent ënew institutionalistí hype within social sciences (in particular, research in urban and regional levels of housing and property market processes in many contexts, as this school of thought easily adapts to various circumstances and conditions); second, to demonstrate the point on one such phenomenon: how planning (in a broad sense involving both formal and informal dimensions) influences and is influenced by the formation of house prices and land value; and third, to test these ideas within the processes of urban renewal/regeneration ñ a planning measure in the broad sense ñ within a very localised housing market area (one or two neighbourhoods).