The Affordability of Adequate Housing

A "quality-based" measure of housing affordability problems employing the cost of housing just meeting adequacy standards is proposed as an improvement over the conventional "high" rent-to-income criterion. Based on Annual Housing Survey data, affordability difficulties grew between 1975 and 1983 by either measure. The conventional measure, however, overestimated the extent of quality-based affordability difficulty for renters by 20% in 1975 and 24% in 1983 based upon Section 8 housing quality standards. In addition, 35% of rental households with an affordability problem by the conventional measure did not have an affordability problem by the quality-based measure, while 19 to 23% of rental households found to have an affordability problem by the quality-based measure were not so classified using the conventional measure.     

New Home Affordability, Equity, and Housing Market Behavior

Recent analyses have reported quite different estimates of the percentage of American families who can afford to buy new homes. However, the differences in the levels of affordability have obscured two more important similarities between the studies: most measures of affordability are closely correlated over time, and none correlate at all with what in fact is occurring in the housing market. One important reason for the latter phenomenon is that affordability measures concentrate on income and ignore wealth. Newly available data from the Annual Housing Survey makes it possible to estimate the equity of current homeowners, which is one important component of wealth. With this data, it is possible to compute a new measure of affordability, which more closely corresponds to the actual market behavior of households. This new measure shows a much higher level of affordability than those previously published, and also shows that young families, who have been the subject of particular concern among housing policy-makers, appear to be slightly better off in the housing market than older families.     

The Inventory–Sales Relationship in the Market for New Single-Family Homes

Time series methods are applied to study monthly inventory and sales dynamics in the U.S. market for new single-family homes. The inventory measure used is the inventory of unsold, new single-family homes, regardless of the stage of construction. Stylized facts regarding inventory, sales, the inventory–sales ratio and the implied series of speculative housing starts are produced. Implications for structural models of housing supply and the relationship of inventory investment in this market to economy-wide inventory investment are considered. Finally, innovation accounting methods are applied to a structural VAR to study the responses of inventories and sales to permanent and transitory shocks.     

Temporary Buydowns and Affordability

This paper is directed to a neglected aspect of the problem of home ownership affordability: the impact on affordability of temporary buy downs. A temporary buydown is an option offered to home buyers to reduce the mortgage payment in the early years of the loan. The borrower allocates cash up front to an escrow account from which funds are withdrawn monthly to supplement the borrower's mortgage payment.
Temporary buydowns are underused partly because of the difficulty of determining whether, in any particular case, they will increase affordability. This paper develops a new instrument called the maximum affordable mortgage (MAX) which automatically allocates the buyer's available cash between buydown, down payment and other uses in a manner which maximizes affordability for the buyer, subject to whatever underwriting constraints the investor wishes to impose on payment graduation and/or the total size of the buydown.
The lender originating the MAX must be able to solve a complex algorithm at the point of sale, but the complexity is all behind the scenes. Using a computer, a loan officer can quickly find the cash allocation that maximizes affordability. The power of the MAX in increasing affordability may be enhanced if it is combined with a buyup wherein the lender trades off lower points against a higher rate.     

Amenity‐Based Housing Affordability Indexes

The recent slump notwithstanding, substantial increases in house prices in many parts of the United States have served to highlight housing affordability for moderate‐income households, especially in high‐cost, supply‐constrained coastal cities such as Boston. In this article, we develop a new measure of area affordability that characterizes the supply of housing that is affordable to different households in different locations of a metropolitan region. Key to our approach is the explicit recognition that the price/rent of a dwelling is affected by its location. Hence, we develop an affordability methodology that accounts for job accessibility, school quality and safety. This allows us to produce a menu of town‐level indexes of adjusted housing affordability. The adjustments are based on obtaining implicit prices of these amenities from a hedonic price equation. We thus use data from a wide variety of sources to rank 141 towns in the greater Boston metropolitan area based on their adjusted affordability. Taking households earning 80% of area median income as an example, we find that consideration of town‐level amenities leads to major changes relative to a typical assessment of affordability.     

Indicators of Local Housing Affordability: Comparative and Spatial Approaches

This paper focuses on the measurement of local housing affordability problems. A number of different housing market indicators are offered that help identify the magnitude and nature of housing affordability problems and their geographic distribution. This interest is prompted by the predominance of housing affordability problems and the severity of the problems for many of the lowest income renter households. In addition, there is significant policy interest in "the national goal that every American family be able to afford a decent home in a suitable environment" (National Affordable Housing Act of 1990). This paper develops measures of the spatial distribution of affordability problems and implements measures of the mismatch between the demand and supply of housing affordable to the lowest income households.     

Risk Segmentation of American Homes: Evidence from Denver

This article empirically examines the segmentation of house price risk across 99 ZIP‐code‐delineated neighborhoods in metropolitan Denver. The house price risk in each neighborhood is measured with the temporal variation of quarterly appreciation rates of the neighborhood house price index over the 2002–2007 period. Cross‐sectional regressions of neighborhood house price risk on the median household income and the percentage of population in poverty from the 2000 census data for the same neighborhoods provide strong evidence that the house price risk is significantly higher in low‐income/poor neighborhoods. Subperiod analyses further indicate that the risk segmentation exists in both a booming period (pre 2005:2) and a busting period (post 2005:3). The results indicate that homeownership can be a much riskier investment for low‐income/poor households.     

Turnover as a Measure of Demand for Existing Homes

Changes in the turnover of existing homes are often equated with changes in housing demand, but it is not clear if, or why, this linkage exists. This paper documents the positive correlation between changes in turnover and changes in housing demand and develops a search model that explain the linkage. One implication of the analysis is that, for high frequency data, turnover is superior to price as an indicator of change in housing demand.     

The Correct use of Confidence Intervals and Regression Analysis in Determining the Value of Residential Homes

This paper shows that (1) the principle of substitution has been misinterpreted in regression analysis on residential homes by the misuse of the confidence interval; (2) the proper confidence interval to judge the accuracy of the equation is the mean CI; and (3) the accuracy of the equation can be improved by applying factor analysis to the entire data set rather than a predetermined neighborhood. These results are illustrated in a sample of 571 residential sales in Northwest Arkansas during 1975. The data are divided into clusters, and a regression equation is computed for each. The results show that the mean confidence interval is the correct application of the principle of substitution. The correct decision rule to determine the superiority of the multi-equation or the single equation model compares the explained to the unexplained variation. These results should allow the appraiser to select properties that are better suited for comparison. This will improve the accuracy of the regression analysis and resulting estimates of property value.     

Appraisal, Agency and Atypicality: Evidence from Manufactured Homes

The appraisal of the "market value" of homes serving as the collateral for mortgages is a fundamental part of the underwriting process. If a loan should default, however, it is not the retail market value that the lender obtains, but rather the "recovery value." In this research, we show how recovery values differ from market values at origination and explore the reasons for the differences. Using a large sample of chattel mortgages on manufactured homes, we explore the relationship among the selling prices, the book values, and the fitted values from simple hedonic models with spatial autocorrelation. We then address the differences between selling prices at origination and recoveries from repossessed homes. We find that the spread between them varies systematically with home characteristics and especially with "atypicality," that is, with measures of how unusual a home is. Selling prices both at origination and recovery affect borrower defaults.     

为"酷""炫"喝彩--新世代饮料包装解读

饮料不再只是解渴而已，还是饮用者的宣言——选一款包装“酷”“炫”的饮料，等于穿上一件个性化外衣，告诉大家：“我与众不同!”     

The Survival of New Products

We study the survival of new products in a market with horizontal product differentiation and rapid product turnover. Our data set consists of monthly sales for all new products in the Swedish beer market during 1989–1995. Results show that products with low and decreasing market shares have high hazard rates. The hazard rates are also dependent on firm characteristics; products from firms with the largest market shares face a greater risk of being withdrawn. We argue that high hazard rates of new products can help to explain high failure rates of new firms.     

印刷工业新面貌

在2003年8到10月间,我有机会到珠江三角洲,温州地区及长江三角洲的上海、江苏昆山和无锡地区参观考察一些印刷厂及印刷设备制造厂,并与一些企业领导者进行座谈.在上海举办的全印展期间,也与一些印刷设备供应商驻华机构的代表及港、澳、台地区的印刷界业内人士进行了交流,有以下几点认识.     

特种印制的新发展

在激烈的市场竞争中,假冒伪劣问题已不鲜见。作者提出防伪技术与印刷技术相结合,加强防伪技术研究,实现印刷的多色高效化,实现综合防伪与印刷技术的全面合作,开创特种印刷新局面的主要见解     

印刷工业发展新思路

根据党的十六届三中全会通过的<中共中央关于完善社会主义市场经济体制若干问题的决定>,我国将以不断改革、不断完善、更加开放的姿态面向全世界,预期印刷行业也将在进一步的改革浪潮中发生重大的变化与发展.当前各行业都在根据党中央决定的精神,根据建设小康社会任务发展的要求,根据各行业自身的实际,结合制订第十一个五年计划,都在探讨与调整今后发展的思路,开阔自己的新视野,进而达到发展的新境界.我认为印刷工业应着重考虑以下几个问题.     

量体裁衣的现代内涵

量体裁衣在当今社会,具有了全新的精神内涵,服装已不仅仅只是"避寒遮体"的实用功能,更加注重满足穿着者审美和精神的需求,塑造出完美的自我,使身心得到愉悦与满足。