While supply-focused housing policy reforms in coastal states usually focus on expanding the stock of multifamily rental housing, cities in the south have pursued a different strategy: making it easier to build and sell small-lot single family homes for ownership. …
The Homevoter Hypothesis: A New Generation Gap?
We know that older people vote more than younger people and that homeowners vote more than renters; but are older homeowners, as a class, overrepresented in local elections? Katherine Levine Einstein, Maxwell Palmer, Ellis Hamilton, and Ethan Singer analyzed the…
Consumer-Lending Discrimination in the FinTech Era
Published: 2019 | Robert Bartlett, Adair Morse, Richard Stanton, Nancy Wallace Abstract Under U.S. fair-lending law, lenders can discriminate against minorities only for creditworthiness. Using an identification under this rule, afforded by the GSEs’ pricing of mortgage credit risk, we…
Building Black Homeownership Bridges: A Five-Point Framework for Reducing the Racial Homeownership Gap
Published: 2019 | Alanna McCargo, Jung Hyun Choi, and Edward Golding | Urban Institute Abstract Homeownership is an important wealth-building source and a foundation for economic stability. Owning a home can provide a stable place to live and remove significant…
Racial Rent Differences in U.S. Housing Markets
Published: 2018 | Dirk W. Early, Paul E. Carrillo, Edgar O. Olsen Abstract This paper exploits an unusually rich data set to estimate racial differences in the rents paid for identical housing in the same neighborhood in U.S. housing markets…
Why Buy a Home? Race, Ethnicity, and Homeownership Preferences in the United States
Published: 2018 | Brian J. McCabe | SAGE Sociology of Race and Ethnicity Abstract There are many reasons why Americans prefer homeownership to renting. Owning a home can serve as a vehicle for economic mobility or a marker of status…
The Rare Occurrence of Mortgages Over $500,000
Published: 2017 | NLIHC Abstract The report reveals that only 5% of the mortgages obtained between 2013 to 2015 in the U.S. were larger than $500,000 and that lowering the mortgage interest deduction (MID) cap to $500,000 would have no…
The Mortgage Interest Deduction and its Impact on Homeownership Decisions
Published: 2014 | Christian A. L. Hilber and Tracy M. Turner | Review of Economics and Statistics Abstract This paper examines the impact of the combined U.S. state and federal mortgage interest deduction (MID) on homeownership attainment, using data from…
Whiteness as Property
Published: 2006 | Cheryl I. Harris | UCLA School of Law Research Paper Abstract Issues regarding race and racial identity as well as questions pertaining to property rights and ownership have been prominent in much public discourse in the United…
Housing Subsidies: Effects on Housing Decisions, Efficiency, and Equity
Published: 1985 | Harvey S. Rosen | Nation Bureau of Economic Research Abstract This paper surveys the effects of two of the most important federal policies toward housing: the “implicit subsidy” for owner-occupied housing in the income tax code, and…