The accumulation of foreclosed properties: trajectories of metropolitan REO inventories during the 2007–2008 mortgage crisis

Foreclosure

Risky Business: An Econometric Analysis of the Relationship Between Subprime Lending and Neighborhood Foreclosures

Illustrates the quantitative relationship between the level of subprime lending in a neighborhood and foreclosure levels in a subsequent period, while controlling for changes in economic and demographic characteristics that might also effect foreclosure rates

The Impact of Single Family Mortgage Foreclosures on Neighborhood Crime

Examines the impact of foreclosures of single-family mortgages -- both conventional and government guaranteed -- on levels of violent and property crime at the neighborhood level

Redlining Redux: Black Neighborhoods, Black-Owned Firms, and the Regulatory Cold Shoulder

There has been a growing body of evidence indicating race-based discrimination in small business lending. However, very little research has examined potential geographic redlining effects. Thisarticle measuress mall businesslending flowsto neighborhoodsin the Philadelphia metropolitan area. It advancespre viousw ork by measuring differential credit flowswhile accounting for variationsin the credit scoresof small firms. Black tractsrecei ve fewer loansafter accounting for firm density, firm size, industrial mix, neighborhood income, and the credit quality of local firms. The findings suggest that federal bank regulators should expand small business lending data to include racial characteristics and application information, in part to help identify potentially discriminating lenders for further investigation. Also, Community Reinvestment Act regulations should pay more attention to the distribution of small business loans, by both race and income of neighborhood

Racial Justice and the Mortgage Market: Recommendations to the Biden Administration Regarding the Future of the GSEs

In many ways, these essays expose the enormity of the project of housing finance reform. Housing finance is underpinned by assessments of risk and value that have not escaped their racist origins, and many essays in this series grapple, in different ways, with the question of whether and how we can take those threads out of the fabric. But our authors also offer steps forward that policymakers can take action on immediately to reform the GSEs, the CRA, the real estate industry, and more. Equally importantly, these essays offer a vision of what housing finance might look like beyond the constraints of neoliberalism, and challenge us to consider the possibilities that the current political moment might unlock. Already, we can see these ideas beginning to take clearer shape on the national stage, thanks to the hard work of many—and we hope to see new legislative proposals, federal administrative initiatives, and state and local commitments that will bring us closer to a new, more just reality.

Homebuying in New Orleans Before and After Katrina: Patterns by Space, Race and Income

Natural disasters can conceivably have significant impacts on the “neighborhood sorting” of different racial or economic groups across intrametropolitan space. Using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data we examine mortgage-financed homebuying activity within the New Orleans MSA before and after Hurricane Katrina. We find that, while the total amount of homebuying in the 7-parish New Orleans MSA was relatively unchanged between 2004 and 2006, homebuying in the city declined significantly, and declined most in places experiencing severe storm damage. We also find that after Hurricane Katrina, the proportion of homebuyers in the region and the city who were African-American or low-income declined. Finally, we find that segregation levels of African-American and lower-income homebuyers f declined in the year following Katrina. However, some of this effect is likely due to smaller overall numbers of lower-income and African-American buyers in the region.New Orleans, housing after disasters, segregation

Large-Scale Redevelopment Initiatives and Home Values: The Case of the Atlanta Beltline Project

This paper examines the property value impacts of a very large-scale redevelop initiative in Atlanta. Large impacts are found in lower-income neighborhoods surrounding the proposed project.gentrification, property values

Measuring the Effect of Subprime Lending on Neighborhood Foreclosures: Evidence from Chicago

Since the early 1990s, there has been a very large growth in mortgages made by so-called subprime lenders, which specialize in lending to borrowers with credit history problems. One reason for concern about this trend is that it has been associated with a large and simultaneous rise in foreclosures, which can entail significant costs not just for those directly affected but also for surrounding neighborhoodsand larger communities. This study usesmultivariate estimations to quantify the impact of subprime lending on neighborhood foreclosure levels. After controlling for neighborhood demographics and economic conditions, the authors find that subprime loans lead to foreclosures at far greater rates than do prime loans. Moreover, subprime lending appears to account for a substantial share of foreclosure activity in high-foreclosure neighborhoods

Housing Vacancy and Hypervacant Neighborhoods: Uneven Recovery after the U.S. Foreclosure Crisis

We examine neighborhood housing vacancy patterns in the largest 200 metropolitan areas from 2012 to 2019, focusing especially on Sunbelt and Rustbelt metros, both hit hard by the 2007–2011 foreclosure crisis. We pay special attention to neighborhood “hypervacancy,” where large amounts of long-term vacant housing are most likely to impose negative impacts. We find that, in the Sunbelt, hypervacant tracts declined over the 2012 to 2019 period, while they remained constant in Rustbelt metros. Despite this, the results show that hypervacant neighborhoods do exist in the Sunbelt, especially in slower-growth metros. We find that hypervacancy is heavily racialized; hypervacant tracts tend to have relatively large Black and Latinx populations. Regressions show that hypervacancy is shaped by preexisting urban disparities as well as metropolitan housing market strength. After controlling for metropolitan growth and economic factors, whether a city is located in the Sunbelt or the Rustbelt is not found to have an independent effect on the persistence of hypervacancy. There are, in fact, weak-growth metros in both the Sunbelt and the Rustbelt, and they tend to have high levels of vacancy and hypervacancy. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy and practice in cities struggling with hypervacancy

Large-Scale Redevelopment Initiatives and Home Values: The Case of the Atlanta Beltline Project

This paper examines the property value impacts of a very large-scale redevelop initiative in Atlanta. Large impacts are found in lower-income neighborhoods surrounding the proposed project