Using Real Estate Data to Study Housing Dynamics

The Comeback City? Modeling Perceived, Anticipated, and Real Neighborhood Change in Detroit (Morenoff/Gerber/Wileden/Noh)
Based on data linkage to the Detroit Metro Area Communities Study (DMACS ), a series of projects will analyze the connection between neighborhood change and residents’ quality of life and wellbeing, study the effects of place-based policy initiatives in Detroit, and investigate discrepancies between homeowners’ perceived and actual housing values.

Spatial Variation in Property Tax Burdens and Municipal Fiscal Capacity (Manduca)
Unequal access to basic services provided by municipalities is a key aspect of spatial inequality and a potential contributor to inequality in opportunity. This project will document variation in property tax revenues at the municipality level and relate them to residents’ characteristics and their economic opportunities.

Unequal Homeownership: Race, Property Deeds, and the Safety Net (Simington)
Racial inequities in homeownership are byproducts of discriminatory policy and law. This project investigates variation in property deed type by race as a perpetuating mechanism of this inequality. It explores how deed type shapes access to local and federal aid, including mortgage assistance, home repair grants, and disaster recovery funds.

The Wealth Inequality and Mobility Study (Pfeffer/Manduca/Dvir-Djerassi)
Through linkage with IRS tax data (WIMS), this project will improve the estimation of housing wealth from tax registers, with the ultimate aim of providing new estimates of wealth levels, wealth inequality, and intergenerational wealth correlations for the entire U.S. population.