There Goes the Neighborhood: The Effect of Single-Family Mortgage Foreclosures on Property Values

This report shows that foreclosures have a significant negative effect on neighborhood property values. Although foreclosures have long been considered a problem associated with FHA loan programs, recent research has shown that the explosion in foreclosures that began in the 1990s was primarily driven by the growth of high-risk, conventional subprime lending

Renting the Dream: The Rise of Single-Family Rentership in the Sunbelt Metropolis

In the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis, there has been a marked shift toward renting in the United States, with a large increase in households renting single-family homes. In the 50 largest metropolitan areas, the number of detached, single-family rental homes (SFRs) increased from 3.8 million to 5.8 million from 2006 to 2015. Single-family rentership rates increased in all 50 large metro areas, with the percentage of single- family units that are rented increasing from 11.3% to 16%. Notably, the nine metropolitan areas with the largest increases were all located in the Sunbelt. Given expected neighborhood sorting, it is important to consider neighborhood increases in SFRs. In one large Sunbelt metro area, Atlanta, increases in SFRs from 2010 to 2015 were particularly large in older, inner- county diverse suburbs. Regression results show that, controlling for other neighborhood characteristics, neighborhoods with larger Asian, Latino, and black populations saw larger increases in SFRs. The effects were particularly high in neighborhoods with larger Latino and, especially, Asian populations. Another key finding is that, in neighborhoods with lower property values, more foreclosures during the crisis were associated with sizeable increases in SFRs. However, more foreclosures in neighborhoods with high property values were not associated with increases in SFRs. This is possibly due to the exclusionary nature of high property-value suburbs and the strong demand in such neighborhoods for owner-occupied housing. Implications for policy and research are considered

Confronting the Heartbreak and Injustice of Eviction

Review of Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City ( New York : Crown ,2016 ). 418pp. $17.03 (hardcover), ISBN: 9780553447439

Foreclosures and Neighborhoods: The Shape and Impacts of the U.S. Mortgage Crisis

The U.S. mortgage crisis beginning in 2007 resulted in very high levels of foreclosures in many neighborhoods around the country. In addition to harming individual households, foreclosures had negative spillover effects on nearby properties and households, including lower property values and higher crime rates. To understand the effects of foreclosures on households and neighborhoods, it is important first to understand the demographic and geographic distributions of foreclosures and how they may have changed during the foreclosure crisis, which persisted for more than five years, from 2007 to beyond 2012. Spurred in part by the crisis, dozens of studies have been published on the effects of foreclosures on neighborhoods; somewhat fewer studies have systematically examined the intrametropolitan morphology of the crisis, including how this morphology varied across metropolitan areas and over time. This chapter first reviews the geographic incidence and concentrations of foreclosures, and then reviews evidence of the impacts of foreclosures on households and neighborhoods

Private Risk, Public Risk: Public Policy, Market Development, and the Mortgage Crisis

This article describes the development of mortgage markets in the United States in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on the growth of high-risk market segments beginning in the 1990s. It focuses on the federal role in the development of stable, risk-limiting products and markets. The author then examines the growth of securitization, including structured finance and its impact on mortgage markets. Finally, the article discusses the policy debates and developments surrounding subprime and other high-risk mortgage lending from the 1990s through the 2007-2008 mortgage crisis. The author concludes that knowledge of the problems and costs of high-risk lending had a minimal impact on policy making and that mortgage markets are not well served by a deregulationist paradigm

Review: Where We Want to Live: Reclaiming Infrastructure for a New Generation of Cities

Review of Where We Want to Live: Reclaiming Infrastructure for a New Generation of Cities, by Ryan Gravel (2016). New York, NY: St. Martin\u27s Press. 256 pages. $26.99 (hardcover)

The Battle of the Belts: Comparing Housing Vacancy in Larger Metros in the Sun Belt and the Rust Belt Since the Mortgage Crisis, 2012 to 2019

As a result of the 2007-2011 mortgage crisis, cities across the US experienced an unprecedented increase in housing vacancy. Since 2012, the broad national housing market has generally experienced a recovery, but it has been a highly uneven recovery. This paper focuses on changes in neighborhood-level, long-term vacancy rates from 2012 to 2019 in two critical regions of the US, the Sunbelt and the Rustbelt. We examine medium-sized and large metro areas in both regions. We focus particularly on the extent to which very high rates of neighborhood-level housing vacancy persisted during the recovery. Perhaps unsurprisingly, long-term, very high levels of neighborhood housing vacancy appear to have persisted more in Rustbelt than in Sunbelt metros from 2012 to 2019. Sunbelt metros tended to see more population and housing price growth and greater declines in vacancy, especially in the number of very high and extreme vacancy neighborhoods. However, neighborhoods with high vacancy rates are not solely a feature of the Rustbelt. There are a substantial number of weak-growth metros in the Sunbelt, especially outside of California and Florida, in which very high levels of vacancy have remained a problem even in the face of a broader national recovery. In the Sunbelt and, in particular, the Rustbelt, neighborhoods with very high and, especially, extreme vacancy rates tend to have large Black populations and high poverty rates. Thus, the problem of hypervacancy appears strongly associated with the problem of racial and economic segregation. Given the new uncertainties in the housing market created by COVID-19, it is important to recognize that economic shock and the challenges families are facing in paying rent and mortgages, may spur a new round of vacancy challenges. It is also critical to recognize that very high levels of vacancy tend to be concentrated in higher-poverty communities of color, especially in Black neighborhoods, and thus those seeking to address housing justice, community development, and the racial wealth gap need to pay attention to the problem of hypervacancy. Understanding the trends in, and characteristics of, housing vacancy will aid policymakers and practitioners in their efforts to address this important issue

The Geography of Vacant Housing and Neighborhood Health Disparities After the U.S. Foreclosure Crisis

Objectives: We examined the impact of long-term (6 months or more) vacant housing and various durations of vacancy on a variety of health outcomes at the neighborhood level across three types of U.S. metropolitan areas (metros): (1) those that have experienced consistently strong growth, (2) those that have undergone weak growth, and (3) those hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis. Methods: We used hierarchical linear modeling with long-term vacant housing data derived from the U.S. Postal Service as well as data for health outcomes obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to examine the health effects of residents who resided in 19,243 neighborhoods (census tracts) in the 50 largest metropolitan areas during the housing recovery. Results: Neighborhood long-term vacancy is significantly associated with neighborhood health problems in adults, but the association between vacant housing and neighborhood health outcomes varies based on the growth trajectory of the metropolitan area. For most health outcome measures, long-term vacancies are more strongly associated with poor outcomes in strong-growth and hard-hit metros than in weak-growth metros, but the reverse is true for asthma and mental health. Our findings also suggest that very long-term (more than 3 years) vacant housing increased significantly after the housing crisis and was significantly associated with health problems in all three types of metros. Conclusions: The differences in the relationship between neighborhood-level longterm housing vacancy and health outcomes across the three types of metros should be considered when addressing community development strategies for decreasing vacancy rates aimed at improving health outcomes

Sustainable for Whom? Green Urban Development, Environmental Gentrification, and the Atlanta Beltline

Large-scale, sustainable urban development projects can transform surrounding neighborhoods. Without precautionary policies, environmental amenities produced by these projects, such as parks, trails, walkability, and higher-density development, tend to result in higher land and housing costs. This will make it harder for a low- and moderate-income households to live near the projects, and neighborhoods are likely to become increasingly affluent. The Atlanta Beltline will ultimately connect 45 Atlanta neighborhoods via a 22-mile loop of trails, parks, and eventually a streetcar, all of which follow abandoned railroad tracks. This paper examines the effect of the Beltline on housing values within one half mile. From 2011 to 2015, depending on the segment of the Beltline, values rose between 17.9 percent and 26.6 percent more for homes within a half-mile of the Beltline than elsewhere. The implications for housing affordability and neighborhood change of projects like the Beltline, and associated policy questions, are addressed