Institutional Regimes for Sustainable Collective Housing Stocks

The influence of public policy, property rights and contracts on the sustainability of residential buildings remains largely unknown. This research will use the analytical framework of the housing institutional regime to study the sustainability over time of the housing stock. We aim to produce an inventory of the housing institutional regime in Switzerland, a comparison with the German and Catalan regimes, and policy suggestions to achieve a better sustainability of the housing stock.     

Comment on Elvin K. Wyly and Daniel J. Hammel's “Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and the Resurgence of Gentrication”

Abstract

Wyly and Hammel raise a number of important issues regarding the role of low‐income housing assistance in the more recent resurgence of inner‐city capital investment. However, their methodologies are found to be limited, and their results only weakly support a number of the strong conclusions they draw. Despite these limitations, Wyly and Hammel do present some interesting findings, such as greater loan denial rates for higher‐income applicants in the inner cities than in the suburbs, and raise the possibility of a changing income mix of urban gentrifiers. Building on the article's main theme, the comment suggests strategies to improve low‐income housing policy outcomes and highlights the gentrification conundrum.     

The case for a right to housing

Abstract

America has the resources to guarantee everyone a right to decent, affordable housing, making real the now 50‐year‐old congressionally promulgated National Housing Goal. The issue is one of values—constantly expanding notions of social, civil, and economic rights—and can only be won through political struggle, as has been true historically of all rights expansions.

The costs of not attaining this right, to those suffering from substandard housing conditions and unaffordable costs as well as to society as a whole, should be acknowledged and offset against the increased government outlays required to attain this goal. Ways in which some housing rights now exist are identified as a basis for wider expansion to a true right to decent, affordable housing.     

俄罗斯与中国社会经济体系改革进程与模式比较研究——以俄中住房体系改革为视角

住房体系改革作为整体经济与社会制度变迁的一个组成部分,不仅对住房模式带来巨大的影响,同时还影响到一个国家的经济发展与社会问题的形成。仅就对经济的短期贡献而言,中国的住房体系改革成就无疑是引人瞩目的,而俄罗斯住房体系改革并未给经济增长带来额外的贡献。但从改革生成的结果现状,特别是已经形成的住房体系模式而言,中国住房体系改革结果的后期修正代价已经显现且成本巨大。在已经成熟的市场经济体系的未来制度改革设计方面,俄罗斯住房体系的制度变迁也许可以给我们提供一些思考的路径。     

Comment on Shishir Mathur's “do impact fees raise the price of existing housing?”

Abstract

Impact fees raise the price of new homes, which pay the fee directly, and existing homes, which serve as substitutes for new homes. I argue that such fees are excessive because the net economic benefit of additional homes is not included in the calculation and because more efficient financing tools exist. An impact fee actually pushes prices higher than the fee because it is paid when construction begins but collected at the time of sale. Costs are increased by construction period interest and other costs determined as a percentage of the sale price.

Local governments calculate impact fees incorrectly by not including the indirect and positive impacts from construction and occupancy. If these added net benefits were also considered, the fiscal impact would be less and little or no fee would be required. Moreover, other methods for financing infrastructure are available in most states, so impact fees are unnecessary.     

Outlook: The subprime lending crisis: Focus on the problem: Subprime borrowers in trouble

Abstract

Public policy should be directed at serving the large number of borrowers who have recently taken out subprime loans and who are at serious risk of losing their homes when their mortgages reset. Practicing forbearance and providing counseling for defaulting homeowners, as well as allowing them to refinance into a Federal Housing Administration loan, can be particularly helpful. Broad changes in housing programs and in the structure of the mortgage market should be considered on their merits as good or bad public policy for the long term, not simply as solutions to the subprime problem.     

Comment on Victoria Basolo and Mai Thi Nguyen's “Does mobility matter? The neighborhood conditions of housing voucher holders by race and ethnicity”

Abstract

Creating the opportunity for minorities to move away from poor, racially concentrated neighborhoods to better ones is an important goal of the Housing Choice Voucher Program. However, mobility is not its only—or even its primary—objective. Rather, it aims to reduce severe rent burdens for very low income families and individuals.

Basolo and Nguyen imply that the voucher program by itself can overcome entrenched patterns of racial discrimination. This is unrealistic, even when families receive search assistance. Instead, the test is whether a minority family with a voucher is more likely to live in a low‐poverty, low‐minority neighborhood than the same family without a voucher. The program passes that test. However, Basolo and Nguyen's analysis points to the need for more research on voucher use in localities like Santa Ana where overcrowded housing is an issue, in neighborhoods with a mixed minority population, and in specific metropolitan areas.     

Housing vouchers in the United States,great Britain,and the Netherlands: Current issues and future perspectives

Abstract

We compare the current U.S. housing voucher program with the British housing benefit and the Dutch housing allowance programs. After presenting the theory behind income‐related housing support, which underpins both the U.S. and European systems, we compare the three programs with respect to their scope (the budgeted versus the entitlement approach), the relationship between housing support and rent levels, the poverty trap, moral hazards, and administrative problems.

The United States can learn from Great Britain and the Netherlands that a full entitlement program can best promote equity, but given the present political and economic climate, it is unlikely that Congress will adopt such a program anytime soon. Great Britain and the Netherlands can learn from the United States how to design a more efficient tenant subsidy program, one that provides incentives to find less expensive units and promotes family self‐sufficiency through enhanced job‐seeking behavior.     

Family self‐sufficiency and housing

Abstract

Since the early 1980s, an increasing number of initiatives have been introduced to link housing programs and policies with efforts designed to promote family economic self‐sufficiency. This article reviews a set of programs that have worked to manipulate various components of the housing bundle to improve the economic well‐being of acutely poor families. They include programs that modify the characteristics and services available in the local community, alter families’ residential location, provide incentives and opportunities for homeownership, and link the provision of housing subsidies to increasing local capacity for service delivery.

This article suggests that the centrality of housing in fostering or impeding economic mobility makes it a key element in dealing with acute poverty and part of a creative strategy for intervening in the dynamics of poverty. Several important areas need to be taken into account when evaluating current policy; and multiyear evaluations will be necessary to determine the success of these programs.     

Foreclosure filings and sheriff's sales experienced by low‐income first‐time home buyers

Abstract

This paper examines the recent history of supply‐side subsidies. The first section describes the programs that have had a major impact on the supply of low‐income housing over the last 20 years. The second section looks in some detail at the recent history of tax subsidies to low‐income housing and attempts to quantify their magnitudes. The third section presents some data on recent syndication deals to shed light on the return rate that seems to have been required in recent years to attract private investors into low‐income housing. The final section turns to the literature on rent‐seeking behavior and proposes a more efficient way to subsidize low‐income housing production.