Publications
-
Maintenance and Investments in Small Rental Properties: Findings from New York City and Baltimore
Nearly half of all poor, urban renters in the United States live in rental buildings of fewer than four units, and such buildings make up nearly half our nation’s rental housing stock. Yet small rental properties remain largely overlooked by researchers. We present two reports—from New York City and Baltimore—both providing suggestive evidence, drawn from a variety of sources, about the characteristics of small rental housing. We find that while small buildings offer lower rents and play a crucial role in housing low-income renters, these lower rents are largely explained by neighborhood location. Ownership matters, however. In New York, lower rents are associated with small buildings with resident landlords. Further, we also find better unit conditions in small rental buildings when compared to most larger properties, especially in small buildings with resident landlords. In Baltimore, we find that smaller-scale “mom-and-pop” owners dominate the small rental property market, but that the share of larger-scale owners increases in higher poverty areas of the city. The properties owned by these larger-scale owners receive fewer housing code violations and that these owners appear to invest more frequently in major improvements to their properties.
-
Quarterly Housing Update: 2nd Quarter 2013
Manhattan sales prices have surpassed their pre-recession peak, according to the Furman Center’s New York City 2013 Quarterly Housing Update: 2nd Quarter. But, despite the rise in residential sales prices and volume, foreclosure filings across New York City have continued to grow.
-
NYC Housing 10 Issues Series #5: Moderate-Income Household Subsidy
Housing is a substantial expense for New Yorkers, and has grown even less affordable in the last decade. As housing affordability becomes more of a strain for moderate- and middle-income households, many worry that those households might choose to leave the city altogether, which could undermine the city’s diversity and vitality. Moderate- and middle-income households are often not served by existing rental subsidies, though they may benefit from such a program. This brief examines the feasibility of a moderate-income housing subsidy.
The #NYChousing series, published in 2013 prior to the New York City mayoral election, identified 10 key affordable housing issues that were likely to confront the next mayor of New York City. The series aimed to inform the public about the policy tradeoffs by providing an objective analysis of the pros, cons, and questions related to key housing issues facing New York City. How the incoming New York City mayor would choose address the city's housing challenges in an environment of increasing needs, declining federal support, and a strengthening real estate market would have an enormous effect on the livability, diversity, and character of the city.
-
Shifting the Burden
Some of New York City’s most valuable properties in its highest-cost neighborhoods are significantly and persistently undervalued, according to Shifting the Burden. The report identifies 50 individual co-ops in 46 buildings that were sold in 2012 for more than the New York City Department of Finance’s estimate of the market value of the entire building. This undervaluation has significant consequences for the distribution of tax burdens in New York City.
-
Quarterly Housing Update 2013: 1st Quarter
Indicators of new housing development look promising, according to the Furman Center’s New York City 2013 Quarterly Housing Update: 1st Quarter. Citywide, the number of units authorized by new residential building permits increased to its highest point since late 2008. This is the fourth consecutive quarter with more than 2,000 new units approved for development in New York City.
-
The Foreclosure Crisis and Community Development: Exploring REO Dynamics in Hard-Hit Neighborhoods
As the foreclosure crisis continues, many communities are faced with a glut of properties that have completed the foreclosure process and are now owned by banks or other mortgage lenders. These properties, referred to as “real estate owned (REO),” often sit vacant for extended periods and, recent studies suggest, depress neighboring property values. In this article we shed new light on the “REO problem” by studying the stock of REO properties at the neighborhood level in three urban areas: New York City, Miami-Dade County, Florida, and Fulton County, Georgia. We find that in each area, the number of REO properties was declining as of the end of 2011, and even in the hardest hit neighborhoods, only a small share of REO properties were purchased and “flipped” by investors. However, in Miami-Dade and Fulton Counties, a small number of neighborhoods continued to have very high concentrations of REO properties, and the REO stock in all three areas was increasingly made up of properties that had been in REO for more than three years.
-
Housing and the Great Recession
The story of the Great Recession cannot be told without addressing housing and, in particular, the dramatic decline in housing prices that began in late 2006. A distinctive feature of the Great Recession is its intimate connection to the housing sector; indeed many would argue that the Great Recession was triggered by the widespread failure of risky mortgage products. Whatever the sources of the Great Recession may have been, the housing sector is still deeply troubled and is a key contributor to our ongoing economic duress. This recession brief lays out the main features of the downturn in the housing sector. It was produced as part of a series on the economic and social fallout of the recession in conjunction with the Russell Sage Foundation and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.
-
Quarterly Housing Update 2012: 3rd Quarter
In an analysis of third quarter housing indicators, the Furman Center finds that home sales volume remained relatively stagnant in the third quarter of 2012, with the number of transactions citywide down by 0.1 percent. Housing prices throughout the city are up 4.4 percent compared to the same quarter last year. The report also finds that the number of foreclosure notices issued in Q3 2012 has increased 14.5 percent citywide since the third quarter of 2011, with a 40.9 percent increase in Queens.
-
Quarterly Housing Update 2012: 1st Quarter
In an analysis of first quarter housing indicators, the Furman Center finds that home sales volume rose in the first quarter of 2012, with the number of transactions citywide up almost five percent. Housing prices throughout the city are up 3.5 percent compared to the same quarter last year. The report also finds that the number of foreclosure notices issued in Q1 2012 has fallen citywide since its peak in the third quarter of 2009. However, foreclosure notices in Queens and Staten Island increased by more than 20 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011
-
Quarterly Housing Update 2012: 2nd Quarter
In an analysis of second quarter housing indicators, the Furman Center finds that home sales volume increased in the third quarter of 2012, with the number of transactions citywide up by 16.4 percent. Housing prices throughout the city are up 2.7 percent compared to the same quarter last year. There were 243 new units authorized by building permits in the second quarter of 2012, 386 fewer than the previous quarter and 1,159 fewer than the same quarter of 2011. The report also finds that the number of foreclosure notices issued in Q2 2012 has increased 34.9 percent citywide since the first quarter of 2012, with the highest increase seen in Queens with 41 percent.