Publications
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Quarterly Housing Update: 3rd Quarter 2013
Manhattan sales prices reached a new peak for the second consecutive quarter, according to the NYU Furman Center's 2013 Quarterly Housing Update: 3rd Quarter. Brooklyn saw the largest gains in price appreciation over the previous year at 15 percent, while the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens showed gains over 10 percent. Citywide, new foreclosure filings rose roughly 15 percent since the same quarter last year.
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Quarterly Housing Update: 3rd Quarter 2014
The number of units authorized by new residential building permits continued to rise in during third quarter of 2014, according to the Furman Center’s New York City 2014 Quarterly Housing Update: 3rd Quarter, with Brooklyn experiencing the strongest growth. The number of residential properties sold in the third quarter of 2014 also increased citywide versus the same quarter in the previous year, most notably in Staten Island. Residential housing prices rose by over seven percent in the city overall, and the number of new residential foreclosure filings fell by more than 20 percent in each borough. Read the full report.
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Quarterly Housing Update: 4th Quarter 2014
The number of properties receiving notices of foreclosure was 25 percent lower in the fourth quarter of 2014 than in the same quarter in 2013, according to the Furman Center’s New York City 2014 Quarterly Housing Update: 4th Quarter. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, the number of residential sales declined about two percent citywide, and housing prices increased over six percent citywide. Residential building permit rates varied across the boroughs: more units were authorized in the fourth quarter of 2014 than in the same quarter of the previous year in Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island, but the Bronx and Brooklyn saw sizable declines. Read the full report.
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Selling the Debt: Properties Affected by the Sale of New York City Tax Liens
This data brief sheds light on the process of tax lien sales in New York City, which affected over 15,000 properties and roughly 43,600 residential units between 2010 and 2015.
It finds that most tax liens in New York City eligible for sale are sold and generate substantial revenue for the city; between 1997 and 2015, the city raised more than $1.3 billion from the sale of tax liens. However, the city also has the power to remove liens eligible for sale from the lien sale list. The report also describes the characteristics of properties with liens sold in New York City between 2010 and 2015, including the property type, their location, and the outcome following the lien sale.
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Tenants: Innocent Victims of the Nation’s Foreclosure Crisis
Renters are innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis, losing their homes through no fault of their own when their landlord goes into foreclosure. Until lately, the national discussion on the foreclosure crisis largely focused on owner-occupied homes, but recent analysis reveals that the crisis is significantly impacting renters across the country. New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy found that in New York City, well over half of all foreclosure filings in 2007 were on two to four family or multi-family buildings, and a growing body of data and anecdotal evidence indicates that the problem is not isolated to New York City; heart wrenching stories of renters losing their homes have appeared in newspapers nationwide.
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The American Mortgage System: Crisis and Reform
The Secondary Mortgage Market for Housing Finance in the United States: A Brief Overview
Understanding both the current problems in the secondary market and the proposed solutions requires an understanding of the role of the secondary mortgage market in U.S. housing finance. In this chapter, the authors focus in particular on the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which for decades were the largest players in the U.S. system. The authors conclude that while the described weaknesses within the chapter are important, and the structure of the GSE’s should surely be improved, it would be a mistake to assume that simply reforming the GSEs, without making significant reforms to the private-label market, would prevent another crisis.
The Community Reinvestment Act: Evaluating Past Performance and Reviewing Options for ReformThe passage of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1977 set in motion a bold experiment that has yet to achieve its full potential. This chapter analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of implementation of the CRA over the last 33 years and provides potential directions for reform, one of which recommends that the Obama administration designate one agency to take the lead and give the agency a tight timetable, sufficient staffing and analytic resources, and the authority to resolve disputes. While reform may also involve legislation, it is important to make sure that it does not become overly prescriptive and stifle innovation. The banking world will continue to evolve, as will the best ideas on how to revitalize and strengthen communities.
Improving U.S. Housing Finance Through Reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: A Framework for Evaluating AlternativesThis chapter lays out criteria for evaluating proposals for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The authors introduce the basic goals of a healthy secondary market for both the single-family and multi-family markets, which include access to liquid credit markets nationwide, countercyclical stability and availability of safe products that are reasonably priced and clearly understood by borrowers and investors.The authors also offer a framework that will help describe and understand the different proposals for reform and how variants of Fannie and Freddie might fit into that picture. As federal government officials contemplate the future of these two entities, the authors hope that this chapter offers a useful framework to use in evaluating the alternative proposals.
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The Evolving Crisis in Context: Recent Developments for Tenants in the Foreclosure Crisis
Although the plight of renters in the foreclosure crisis has entered the consciousness of national policymakers, renters have more often than not been omitted from the narratives offered to describe the ongoing crisis. Despite the lack of attention they have received, many thousands of rent-paying tenants have also been affected by the foreclosure crisis. Fortunately, tenants have received specific protections from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as new rights under new federal laws. But while these new protections and rights should help, tenants still face significant uncertainty as the foreclosure crisis continues to unfold and outreach and communication of these rights will be essential. This chapter, assesses the extent and scale of the challenges facing renters in the foreclosure crisis, as well federal action and GSE policy changes designed to address their rights. It is an excerpt from a report by The National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, “Forging a New Housing Policy: Opportunity in the Wake of Crisis.”
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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.
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The High Cost of Segregation: The Relationship Between Racial Segregation and Subprime Lending
This study examines whether the likelihood that borrowers of different races received a subprime loan varied depending on the level of racial segregation where they live. It looks both at the role of racial segregation in metropolitan areas across the country and at the role that neighborhood demographics within communities in New York City played.
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The Impact of Subsidized Housing Investment on New York City’s Neighborhoods
The contemporary assumption is that the production of subsidized housing, if anything, accelerates neighborhood decline – “there goes the neighborhood” is the common refrain. Partially as a result, we’ve seen the policy pendulum swing away from place-based housing investment towards demand-side housing programs, such as housing vouchers. Through multiple studies, the Furman Center has consistently found significant, positive impacts from subsidized housing investment, suggesting that publicly-funded housing investments aimed at distressed urban properties can deliver significant benefits to the surrounding community.