The normalisation of home ownership is well-rehearsed, yet ongoing. In a bid to free up the intellectual, political and practical imagination around owner occupation, this paper confronts its absurdity. By way of four ‘thought experiments’, the text interrogates: a spatial paradox enabling housing services to deliver investment returns; a financial paradox enacted to wrest the rabbit of fiscal well-being from the hat of indivisible assets; some uncanny qualities infusing the security of home ownership; and the ill-fated anticipation that leveraged ownership might conjure something out of nothing where welfare needs arise. Having reviewed some limits to tenure-divided, ownership-centred housing systems, the paper concludes with a practical and ethical reflection on the future.

Owner occupation: at home in a spatial, financial paradox

As cities across the U.S. have rebounded from the Great Recession, an increasing number of households in urban areas are facing high rent burdens in order to remain in their current neighborhoods. Several policy options have been used to maintain or increase the supply of below-market rate housing, including inclusionary zoning, TIFs and other value capture mechanisms, and household-based subsidies such as vouchers. In this paper, we describe the problem of affordability in rising markets and review existing evidence on how well local policy approaches work. The most widely used policies, local inclusionary zoning and statewide “fair share” laws, have produced relatively small numbers of affordable units, and are therefore unlikely to substantially mitigate the effects of rising housing costs. More effective policies to develop and preserve affordable housing, particularly in high opportunity neighborhoods, will require increased public and private funding and political support.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2851175_code1544631.pdf?abstractid=2851175&mirid=1

Producing Affordable Housing in Rising Markets: What Works?

This paper provides an updated account of housing affordability research in top-tier urban and housing related journals. The theme and foci of affordability studies are reviewed based on a literature survey of 112 journal papers over the period 1990 to 2013. Six perspectives are encompassed, namely definition and measurement of affordability, housing poverty, affordable housing, impact of planning and zoning; econometric analysis of housing affordability; and housing policy. In particular, the study reviews the methodological development of, and barrier to, housing affordability measurement. The nature and extent of housing affordability are critically discussed, and weakness of conventional measurement commented. Finally, future research agenda is proposed.

/pdf/recent-trends-on-housing-affordability-research-where-are-we-23ly5njko0.pdf

Recent trends on housing affordability research: where are we up to?

The undersupply of housing in England has created a pervasive sense of crisis about the delivery of sufficient new dwellings. Alternative forms of housing provision therefore merit further exploration, particularly those that can deliver low cost, stable accommodation in good condition. Potential remedies may be found in various models for collective ownership of housing. Housing collectives are organisations controlled by their members and residents, operating in a defined geography, which collectively own and manage land and housing for the benefit of a designated group. But why have such organisations consistently been a marginal form of provision? And do the patterns of benefits and costs they create make their future expansion desirable? Significant gaps in knowledge emerge in attempting to answer such questions. Furthermore, the relationship between the benefits and costs arising within collectives, and the form and function of these organisations, is poorly understood.
Three housing collectives were studied intensively to address these gaps in knowledge. Ideas from realist social science and analytical sociology are brought to bear on processes of change. The study finds powerful constraints and enablements in the internal workings of collectives, as well as a series of external constraints and enablements arising through the structure of relations around the collectives.
Residents and members of the collectives identified a range of costs and benefits. Causal mechanisms are introduced to show how these perceived outcomes are, in part, attributable to collective form and function. The rules governing collective forms blend with internal regulation, to generate certain costs and benefits. Furthermore, the history of each collective tends to shape current behaviours to preserve original ideals and achieve desired outcomes. The lessons from this research are far reaching for activists, support agencies and governments, revealing forms of agency and state intervention which can affect the conditions for future collectivism.

Collective realism: Exploring the development and the outcomes of urban housing collectives.

Why do we see persistence, recurrence, and new emergence of concentrated poverty in U.S. cities? In this article, we explore an understudied connection: whether an important part of the built environment—a series of attributes that constitute precarious housing—constitutes a durable substrate on which concentrated poverty predictably emerges and recurs and if so, how this might vary across the United States. Poverty grew fastest between 2000 and 2005–2009 in tracts that began the decade with high levels of rented one- to four-family housing, multifamily housing, housing between 20 and 25 years old, and households paying over 30% of their income for housing costs. In addition, poverty grew fastest in tracts with high percentages of black or Hispanic households in 2000.

Why High-Poverty Neighborhoods Persist The Role of Precarious Housing

Shared equity initiatives provide homeownership opportunities to low- and moderate-income families who buy homes at below-market prices. The appreciation that can be earned by resellers is limited to preserve the homes' affordability at resale. This article analyses affordability, personal wealth, security of tenure, and mobility outcomes for seven shared equity programs across the USA. Homebuyers earned returns that were competitive with what they would have received if they had invested in stocks or bonds. In addition, homes remained affordable to lower income buyers over time as the homes were resold. Homeownership under these programs was sustainable: there were very low delinquency and foreclosure rates and many families who sold their homes were able to use their sales' proceeds to purchase market-rate homes. Owners also showed little evidence of being locked in place, and moved to new homes at rates near the national average.

Sharing Equity with Future Generations: An Evaluation of Long-Term Affordable Homeownership Programs in the USA

In the wake of the foreclosure crisis, what programs can help low-income families become homeowners in a sustainable way? Shared equity programs offer one model, successfully balancing both affordability and asset building goals. In this article, researchers from the Urban Institute evaluate the effectiveness of 7 shared equity homeownership programs from across the country. They find that without exception, the programs provide long-term affordable homeownership, opportunities for low-income families to build equity, and sustainable tenure. This study suggests that shared equity programs could be cost effective way of supporting homeownership going forward.

Kenneth Temkin

Papers

Sharing Equity with Future Generations: An Evaluation of Long-Term Affordable Homeownership Programs in the USA

A promising way forward for homeownership: assessing the benefits of shared equity programs

Baseline Report on the Cornerstone Homeownership Innovation Program