Arthur Acolin

Borrowing Constraints and Homeownership Over the Recent Cycle

This paper identifies for the first time the impact of borrowing constraints in the recent decline in homeownership rates. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF), we measure the combined impact of income, wealth and credit constraints on homeownership outcomes over time. It has been established that credit supply loosened during the 2004-07 period and then became considerably more restricted in the wake of the Great Recession. Homeownership has also declined. However, the impact of this tightening of credit on probability of individual households to become homeowners has not previously been estimated. Using estimations of borrowing constraints going back to 2001, we identify the impact of earlier period borrowing constraints compared to those of 2010-13 on population level U.S. homeownership rates.

Who owns Chinatown: Neighbourhood preservation and change in Boston and Philadelphia:

The survival of Chinatowns and other ethnic enclaves in cities is largely determined by who owns property. Ethnic enclaves such as Chinatowns have traditionally played important economic, social and cultural functions as places for recent immigrants to live and work, though Chinatowns have long faced redevelopment pressures. In North America, as Chinese immigrants and their descendants settle in the suburbs, and as historic Chinatowns’ locations close to revitalising downtowns attract increasing investment, the future of these historic enclaves is shaped by various, often intense and divergent, forces. This article describes changes in the patterns of property ownership in Boston and Philadelphia’s downtown Chinatowns over the last decade (2003–2013) and relates them to changes and continuities in these neighbourhoods’ population, commercial activities and building stock. The trends we observe simultaneously reinforce and complicate debates about gentrification and longstanding efforts to preserve these Chinatowns as ethnic Chinese residential, commercial, and cultural centres.

The Performance of New Private-Label Mortgage Loan Modifications after 2009

This paper presents summary statistics and a preliminary analysis of the success rate of loan modifications made in 2010 and January 2011 to residential mortgages securitized in private-label residential mortgage-backed securities. We find that these more recent private-label loan modifications had a higher overall success rate, compared to similar modifications made in earlier years. Consistent with prior literature, having a fixed-rate mortgage, a prime mortgage, a higher Fair Isaac & Company (FICO) credit score, and/or a lower interest rate at origination were positively correlated with lower redefault rates post-modification. Borrowers with interest-only and teaser-rate loans performed slightly better than other borrowers after receiving loan modifications. Similarly, modifications of purchase loans did worse not only than plain vanilla refinance loans, but also worse than debt consolidation and cash out refinance loans. Modifications of private-label mortgages in the four “sand states” – Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada – did better than modifications in other parts of the United States, although the difference was small. Surprisingly, modifications of fully documented loans performed worse, while modified no-documentation loans performed best. Finally, we confirm that capitalizations of arrears performed worse than interest rate reductions and principal modifications, with the latter appearing to be the most effective.

Homeownership and Nontraditional and Subprime Mortgages

Abstract This article documents the growth and geographic distribution of nontraditional mortgages (NTMs) and subprime mortgages during 2000-2006, and examines the association between these products and homeownership at the county level between 2000 and 2012. It finds a significant relationship between the origination of NTM and subprime mortgages during the boom and changes in the number of homeowners (positive during the 2000-2006 period and negative during the 2006-2012 period) but no significant relationship with the change in the homeownership rate. Looking at specific categories of the population, the results indicate a positive relationship between the presence of NTMs and subprime mortgages and increased numbers of homeowners for young households as well as for low income and minority households, but the relationship is smaller than for the general population. Overall, the relationship between NTMs and homeownership is stronger than the relationship between subprime mortgages and homeownership during the boom and it is less negative during the bust.

Housing trajectories of immigrants and their children in France: Between integration and stratification

Immigrants have been found to exhibit different housing tenure patterns from the rest of the population in a number of contexts. This article tests whether observed differences in tenure in France can be explained by differences in socio-demographic characteristics or whether unexplained differences might result from housing market mechanisms that affect immigrants differentially from the rest of the population, and extends this to the second generation. The article relies on data from TeO, a survey of 21,761 persons designed to oversample and identify immigrants and their children, providing information about the outcomes of children of immigrants that is otherwise lacking in French statistics. The results indicate that while immigrants are significantly less likely to be homeowners, even after controlling for compositional difference, the gap in homeownership between the second generation and the rest of the population is smaller and not statistically significant. This suggests a progressive integration in the housing market over time and over generations rather than overall stratified housing trajectories. Differences in terms of the share of social housing residents, the level of residential crowding, and housing and neighbourhood characteristics also decline across generations. However, children of immigrants from some non-European origins are experiencing higher levels of stratification than other groups, with continued significant differences in tenure.

Institutional Ecosystems of Housing Support in Chinese, Southeast Asian, and African Philadelphia

How has the diversity of post-1965 immigration to the United States influenced newcomers’ housing experiences and civil society’s housing support systems? Planning scholars have shown immigration’s role in revitalizing cities and housing markets, but we have done less to parse the variety of housing problems that immigrants experience and the ways civil society addresses them. This article examines the recent history of civil society organizations’ housing support strategies in Chinese, Southeast Asian, and African communities in Philadelphia. We find that the diversity within and between groups has shaped largely distinct “institutional ecosystems” and approaches to housing support.

Opportunity, Housing Access, and Infrastructure

Movement to jobs in growing regions has traditionally been the way out of poverty for generations, but geographical mobility has declined dramatically in the United States. Overall, annual mobility...

Measuring Housing Affordability in Sao Paulo Metropolitan Region

This paper develops a novel measure of affordability for the Sao Paulo metropolitan region that combines housing costs and transportation costs, including opportunity cost associated with commuting time. We also contribute to existing measures of housing affordability in Brazil by imputing housing costs for owners using the owner equivalent rent approach. Our measure enables us to track the evolution of affordability over the period 2007-2013 using PNAD microdata. The results indicate that the number of households spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing or 45 percent or more on housing and transportation costs combined has been increasing rapidly over that period. This measure of affordability can be integrated to a broader measure of housing needs to guide housing policy in addressing housing conditions that have negative effects on individual and social welfare.