Rehabilitation decisions in rental housing: An empirical analysis

Housing policy-makers show increased interest in encouraging rehabilitation of the existing housing stock. But little is known about what factors influence the decision to invest, particularly in rental housing, making policy design difficult. This paper presents an empirical analysis of individual landlords' housing rehabilitation decisions in one housing market. The analysis tests hypotheses about the impacts of detailed neighborhood, structure, and site characteristics on each owner's investment activity. Findings support the general hypothesis that economic returns to investment have a major effect on rehabilitation decisions, identify some other important circumstances, and suggest which among many specific policy levers should be effective.     

A commodity hierarchy model of the rental housing market

This paper presents and analyzes a theoretical model of the rental housing market which addresses the durable-good nature and the heterogeneous nature of housing, while focusing on the quality distribution of housing units. Units of different qualities are viewed as distinct substitute commodities. New construction rates, deterioration rates, rental prices, and stocks are considered to be endogenous. Equilibrium concepts are introduced; both the long-run and short-run equilibria are shown to exist and to be unique. Comparative static results are established. The model's utility is demonstrated by its application to the analysis of several housing market programs.     

Contract equilibria in a regulated rental housing market

Various contractual equilibrium concepts for a regulated rental housing market are studied in this paper. Regulation refers to rental contracts with institutionally prescribed structures and rental prices, a situation common for housing markets with restrictive rental protection legislation. Contracts can then be considered as indivisible commodities with certain unusual characteristics. Existence of equilibria of the various types is shown under rather weak assumptions.     

The short-run comparative statics of a rental housing market

This paper examines the short-run effects of changes in exogenous variables (including several government policies) on the schedule relating market equilibrium rent to quality level. The basic model differs from Sweeney (Econometrica, 42, 147–167 (1974)) by use of a bid rent closed city approach rather than a supply and demand (partially) open city approach. The mathematics changes completely, the analytics simplify, and the results change somewhat. Housing is treated as a durable quality differentiated good, but frictional forces and the multidimensionality of the housing package are ignored. The exception is an extension to a monocentric city context, so that housing units vary in both quality and location.     

A model of rental and owner-occupied housing

A complete model of owner-occupied and rental housing is developed. The model allows for the endogenous determination of rents, the user cost of owner-occupied housing and housing tenure choice by individuals. In the short run, structure prices are endogenous, while in the long run the size of the housing stock adjusts to equate structure prices to exogenous construction costs. Comparative static results emphasize the importance of marginal tax rates and distinguishing between the short and long run for a complete understanding of the impacts of inflation on housing markets.     

Land rent and housing policy: a case study of the San Francisco Bay area rental housing market

In the San Francisco Bay Area, where residential rent is among the highest in the United States, an analysis of data from several sources demonstrates that high rent cannot be accounted for by higher quality, higher operating costs, or higher construction costs. At least one-third of the total rent paid is land rent. Despite increases in real incomes, very-low-income tenants in the Bay Area today have less income remaining after payment of rent than tenants did in 1960. High land rent is a long-term feature of the Bay Area rental market that results mostly from its geography, the density of its urban centers, and a strong economy, rather than from regulatory barriers to new multifamily construction. Deregulation is not a sufficient response to the effects of land rent on low-income tenants. Government should subsidize non-profit housing organizations, particularly land trusts that remove residential land from the market. Taxes on land rent would be a particularly appropriate funding source.     

Household mobility in New York City’s regulated rental housing market

This study analyzes the effect New York City’s rent regulation regime has on household mobility. Using a panel dataset from the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, we estimate the costs and benefits to a particular household of remaining in a regulated unit each period; then in a second stage, we include the benefits of regulations (lowered rent) and the corresponding costs (from disequilibrium in consumption) as explanatory variables in two mobility models. Both logit and survival models confirm that larger benefits in one period are associated with a lower probability of moving in a second period. Similarly, larger costs (distortions in housing consumption) in one period are associated with a higher probability of moving later. While these effects are modest, they are statistically significant. The benefit and cost effects are, however, not symmetric; the pro-mobility effects of costs are roughly twice as large as the anti-mobility effects of benefits. This provides limited support for the relative loss aversion hypothesis of behavioral economics. This support is limited due to the lack of robustness of the result.     

Subtle discrimination in the rental housing market: Evidence from e-mail correspondence with landlords

We find that landlords practice subtle discrimination in the rental housing market through the use of language associated with describing and viewing a unit, inviting further correspondence, making a formal greeting, and using polite language when replying to e-mail inquiries from a white name more often than to an African American name, they also send longer e-mails and respond quicker to white names.     

A probabilistic approach to the structure of rental housing markets

A probabilistic view of the structure of urban housing markets is developed. The demand side is based on aggregate probabilistic demand functions derived from microbehavioral random utility theory. The supply side examines the short-run pricing of the housing stock by developing “asking rent theory,” which explains how a housing supplier must find the optimal rent that maximizes expected revenue. Next, concepts of aggregate market clearing and market equilibrium are defined. Finally, a two-submarket model with specific assumptions regarding the representation of demand and the nature of market signaling is examined in detail and is given a graphical illustration. In closing, directions for extending the probabilistic approach both within and beyond urban analysis are pointed out. All analysis in this paper is for a stationary urban economy, with the housing stock assumed fixed.     

A multivariate unobserved component analysis of US housing market

This study explores price dynamics and price relationships in the US housing market with a focus on four regions: Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. It applies a multivariate state-space model to identify the common trends and common cycles in US regional markets. The study finds that the principal source of secular price variability in the Northeast and West markets is due to two common stochastic trends, while a large share of transitional price variability in the Northeast, West and Midwest originates from three common stochastic cycles. The study estimates the relationships between the common unobserved components and economic variables and finds that unemployment, federal funds rate, corporate default risk, economic expansion, unanticipated inflation in the construction market are significant underlying economic phenomena that impact the evolution of the common movements in both the short run and the long run housing dynamics. Authorship is equally shared between the authors.     

Age of rental housing units and vacancy characteristics A filtering explanation

Aggregate data on rental units indicate that older units have lower vacancy frequencies and higher vacancy durations than newer units. A formulation consistent with the filtering hypothesis of the housing literature is presented that explains the above empirical regularity.     

Estimation and policy implications of rental housing demand

The demand for rental housing using the Annual Housing Survey SMSA sample for 1977 is estimated. The principal determinants of rental housing demand, namely housing price and permanent/transitory income, are computed through spatially varying hedonic price techniques and instrumental variables methods (relating to human and nonhuman capital), respectively. Based on the demand estimation results, impacts of hypothetical cash and rent subsidy programs are analyzed in terms of “housing” and “welfare” effects. It is found that a rent subsidy achieves considerably larger effects than does a cash subsidy.     

公租房小区的特征及治理

公租房小区有三个特征:一是租房者和买房者的混居;二是政府在公租房小区有着相当比重的经济利益;三是居民都是社会的收入中下阶层。公租房小区要避免变成贫民窟,其关键之一是中下阶层的居民能够也愿意参与到小区的治理中来。在此基础上,公租房小区的治理应该强调以小区居民代表为主体组成小区管理委员会,居民代表由居民大会选举产生,买房者的投票权高于租房者,政府代表拥有一定比例的投票权。     

Hedonic analysis of a housing market in disequilibrium

This paper tests the hypothesis that information about housing market activity and about specific dwellings becomes capitalized into single family dwelling prices through a disequilibrium adjustment process. A dynamic price adjustment model, which is an extension of the standard hedonic model widely used in the literature, is derived, specified, and tested with both micro and aggregated data from the city of Chicago and for the period 1972–1976. The results show that from 32 to 75% of the variance in dwelling prices, unexplained by the standard hedonic attributes under assumptions of equilibrium, is explained by market activity signals such as mortgage interest rates and neighborhood transaction rates of the preceding period. Dwellings about which there is less information, making comparison pricing difficult, are shown to command a price premium. The standard equilibrium hypothesis appears readily rejectable and better predictions are obtained from the disequilibrium specifications. Several directions for extending this line of research are discussed.     

从出租屋看农民工市民化的困境

出租屋是农民工在打工地的主要居住方式。其基本特征是:大多数位于城乡结合部;大多数建在宅基地上;运作成本低廉,成为出租屋主财产性收入的重要来源;显著不同于国外的贫民窟;获得农民工较高的满意度。存在的主要问题是:政府对出租屋的规划管理具有滞后性;在法律上还没有承认出租屋的合法地位;对出租屋流动人口管理服务有待于进一步加强。有关的政策建议是:高度重视出租屋的地位和作用;加强对农民工居住的出租屋的研究,建立健全有关法律法规;科学制定城镇规划;加快宅基地、农村集体建设用地改革步伐;保持"以屋管人"的连续性。     

公共租赁房退出机制及其政策选择

我国正在大力发展公共租赁房,但对公共租赁房退出机制的理论研究目前仍比较缺乏。在梳理相关文献的基础上,运用博弈论和比较研究的方法,指出政府管理部门应采取的策略,并对公共租赁房不同退出机制的效果进行了分析。结合我国的实际情况,认为应采取自愿退出、强制退出和激励退出相结合的方式创新我国公共租赁房的退出机制。