How Critical is a Good Location to a Regional Shopping Center?

The goal of this paper is to empirically measure the consumer utility trade-off between store location (i.e., distance to a shopping center) and retail agglomeration in regional shopping centers. Using the Lakshmanan and Hansen retail expenditure model, our findings reveal that the distance specification is of surprisingly little importance in explaining retail sales. Conversely, agglomeration economies were of significant importance in explaining consumer patronage at regional shopping centers. The implication of these results is that smaller regional shopping centers may be dominated by large super-regional shopping centers with the smaller one or two anchor regional shopping centers unable to compete with the larger, many-anchored super-regional shopping centers

The Impact of the Agencies on Conventional Fixed-Rate Mortgage Yields

Between the early 1980s and 1986, the share of new conforming (under $153,000 in 1986) conventional fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) that went into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage pools increased from under 5 percent to over 50 percent. The impact of these agencies moving from negligible participants to dominant players in this market is investigated in this study by an analysis of yields on 4,900 loans closed in California during May-June 1978 and 1,800 closed in 'May-June 1986. Our analysis indicates that the loan rate depends on the loan-to-value ratio, the loan size, and, in 1986, whether the loan is far above, just above, or below the conforming loan limit. Rates on loans far above the conforming loan limit exceed those on otherwise comparable loans below the limit by 30 basis points and those on loans destined to exceed the limit within a year by 15 basis points. That is, the expanded agency securitization of conforming FRMs has significantly lowered the rates on both conforming loans and loans somewhat above the conforming limit (27 percent of nonconforming loans in 1986) relative to what they would otherwise have been. The effects of a 30 basis point lower FRM rate are many: households are more likely to choose FRMs than ARMs, to decide to own rather than rent, and to own larger houses. Moreover, traditional mortgage portfolio lenders will have fewer ARMs to purchase and will earn lower returns on FRM investments. A few sample calculations are provided to illustrate the possible magnitudes of these effects

Reforming Conforming Loan Limits: The Impact on Thrift Earnings and Taxpayer Outlays

In recent years, the conforming loan limit hes risen rapidly (62 percent between 1985 and 1989 versus a 10 percent rise in the price of a constant-quality new house) and has assumed significant importance to homebuyers and portfolio lenders. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become the price setters for conforming FRMs, and the yield being set appears to be 30 basis points below what it would otherwise be. The lower yield raises the old issue of overinvestment in housing, but its most important effect is on thrifts who now earn 30 basis points less on FRM investments under the conforming limit end who have difficulty originating ARMs. Moreover, given other thrift problems, taxpayers will apparently end up directly funding the interest income lost owing to low yields on conforming FRMs. In this paper we calculate the impact on thrift interest income of two redefinitions of conforming loans: making all refinancings nonconforming and lowering the loan limit to the loan ceiling for FMA/VA loans (which was, in fact, the conforming limit prior to 1975) . Each of these redefinitions makes sense from a public policy perspective. Thrifts would have earned nearly $700 million more in 1987 had both redefinitions been in place at the start of 1986. This would have amounted to a 23 percent increase in the industry net operating income (income excluding profits of losses from the sale of assets) and a corresponding increase in return to equity. By the early 1990s, the income gain from these changes, had they been put in place in early 1986, would likely be over a billion dollars -- certainly a noticeable saving for taxpayers.

What Moves Retail Property Returns at the Metropolitan Level?

In this article the determinants of metropolitan-level appraisal-based retail property returns are examined by estimating a six-equation model of retail construction starts, retail sales, stock-market returns, commercial mortgage rates, inflation, and the logarithm of stock-market volatility. Residuals from these equations are then used to explain actual movements in retail real estate returns. Our empirical procedure looks at both unadjusted and unsmoothed appraisal-based retail real estate returns. The general finding is that unsmoothed appraisal-based retail real estate returns lag significantly behind market conditions. Furthermore, the results suggest that very little of the variation in metropolitan-level appraisal-based retail real estate returns can be explained by macroeconomic news events

The Impacts on Capital Allocation of Some Aspects of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981

This paper develops and employs a five-asset, four-household and single-business sector simulation model to measure the long-run impacts of the major provisions of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 on the allocation of a fixed capital stock among owner-occupied housing, rental housing, and nonresidential capital. The specific provisions analyzed are the increases in tax depreciation for nonresidential capital and rental housing and the reduction in the maximum tax rate on unearned income. Our analysis suggests a 6 percent increase in nonresidential capital, an 11 percent decline in owner-occupied housing and little change in rental housing (the increase in the number of renters -- the homeownership rate declines by 1 1/2 percentage points -- offsets a decline in the quantity of rental services demanded per renter). In the absence of an increase in aggregate saving, real pretax interest rates rise by nearly two percentage points. Corporate profit taxes decline by 60 percent, and after-tax earnings rise by 25 percent. As a result of the Act, the net (of depreciation) user costs for the three types of capital will almost be equalized.

A Simulation Analysis of the Relationship between Retail Sales and Shopping Center Rents

This article examines the variation in rents per square foot among regional shopping centers in the United States in response to variation in retail sales per square foot. The analysis breaks new ground by treating base and percentage rents as endogenous functions of retail sales. The analysis further distinguishes between de facto, if not de jure, fixed and percentage leases, and between new versus existing leases. Simulation results suggest that shopping center rents can easily increase in the short-run as retail sales decrease, or they can easily decrease as retail sales increase. In addition, the results suggest that shopping center rents per square foot generally react more aggressively to an increase in retail sales per square foot over time than to a decrease in retail sales per square foot, all else equal

The Effect of Firm Characteristics on the Use of Percentage Retail Leases

Choice of lease payments has been widely studied in the literature. There are three—not necessarily exclusive—explanations that have received attention. The first attributes the choice of fixed versus percentage lease payments to risk-sharing preferences. The second explanation views percentage-of-sales lease agreements as a way discriminating monopolists can appropriate economic rents. The third attributes percentage-of-sales lease agreements to a metering and bonding argument. This paper examines the proposition that the choice of percentage retail leases is driven in part by managements\u27 desire to circumvent the cost of violating debt covenant restrictions. The evidence presented here supports the prediction that retail firms with higher debt–asset ratios are more likely to adopt percentage lease agreements

How Tax Credits Have Affected the Rehabilitation of the Boston Office Market

This paper is concerned with the extent to which rehabilitation tax credits affect the conditional probability of commercial real estate rehabilitation. Very little has been written about the rehabilitation tax credit, despite the fact that it has been a feature of the U.S. tax code since 1978. Our analysis suggests that rehabilitation tax credits have been a significant determinant of the conditional probability of rehabilitation in the Boston office market. We also find that a significant portion of rehabilitation tax-credit investment is investment that would have been invested elsewhere, about 60 to 65 percent in certain periods, but rising to as high as 90 percent in other periods. We find that the rehabilitation tax credit has a significant and substantial influence on the conditional probability of rehabilitation. We also find that the greatest amount of slippage, not too surprisingly, generally occurs when the tax credit is low and when the gain from rehabilitation before the tax credit is high.