What's New
Tenure and Location Choice among Hispanic Households
October 2019
Persistently large gaps in homeownership between whites and Hispanics are...
Home improvement spending is expected to fall
Yahoo Finance
Abbe Will, Associate Project Director of the Remodeling Futures Program,...
Housing + Innovation: Lessons from the Ivory Prize
November 2019
Despite robust demand across the country for affordable starter homes...
Home improvement spending is expected to fall
Yahoo Finance
Abbe Will, Associate Project Director of the Remodeling Futures Program,...
Congress must take action on affordable housing legislation
The Hill
According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard...
How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare
Bloomberg
Recent wildfires have only heightened the stakes for a state...
Housing + Innovation: Lessons from the Ivory Prize
November 2019
Despite robust demand across the country for affordable starter homes...
Housing as History: the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Orchard Gardens
November 2019
By the 1980s the Dudley Square neighborhood of Roxbury was...
Excessive Mortgages, Financial Well-Being, and Financial Skills Among Older Homeowners
December 2019
Over the last few decades, the share of older homeowners...
Tenure and Location Choice among Hispanic Households
October 2019
Persistently large gaps in homeownership between whites and Hispanics are...
The American Dream or Just an Illusion? Understanding Land Contract Trends in the Midwest Pre- and Post-Crisis
August 2019
This paper examines contract for deed activity across six Midwestern...
The Shifting Profile of First-Time Homebuyers: 1997-2017
August 2019
Who are recent first-time homebuyers? What kinds of homes do...
Research and Tools
Exit from Homeownership by Low-Income Households
November 12, 2019
One of the justifications for federal involvement in the homeownership market is that it provides one of the few ways that low-income households can accumulate wealth. But this did not happen over the past couple of decades. This paper explores one explanation for this outcome, the relatively high likelihood of a change in tenure from owning to renting that was brought upon by the recent downturn in the housing market the precipitated the Great Recession. ...
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Institutions and Geographic Concentration in VA Mortgage Lending
November 06, 2019
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) home loan guaranty program lowers the cost of homeownership for veterans and their families by removing the barriers of a down payment and private mortgage insurance. Even with the recent growth in the program and the attractive terms, many veteran homeowners have not used it. As a consequence, some areas of the country with large numbers of veterans have disproportionately few VA loan originations, even after controlling for area housing market conditions. ...
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Building Wealth through Homeownership: A Comparative Study of MHP’s ONE Mortgage Program and FHA
October 30, 2019
This paper compares actual wealth building outcomes in the Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s (MHP) subsidized ONE Mortgage Program to hypothetical outcomes for a borrower who received a comparable Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured mortgage with the same loan amount....
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Baystate Health
Institutions and Geographic Concentration in VA Mortgage Lending
Wednesday, November 06, 2019
The Veteran’s Administration (VA) home loan program, which makes homeownership more affordable for veterans, is used more extensively in places...
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Senior Research Associate
Big Cities Are Taking on Housing Affordability, but Even the Largest Will Need Help
Monday, November 04, 2019
The nation’s largest cities are at the forefront of the battle against high housing costs. In efforts described in our...
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Senior Research Fellow
How the Presence and Type of Down Payment Assistance Affects the Performance of Affordable Mortgage Loans
Monday, October 28, 2019
Even though Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac returned to very-low down payment lending following the financial crisis, saving for a...
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Research Analyst
Where Hasn’t Housing Construction Kept Pace with Demand?
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
For much of the past decade, new housing construction has barely kept pace with the growth in housing demand, particularly...
Read MoreCalendar
Housing as History: the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Orchard Gardens
Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Location: Dewitt Center, 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA 02120
By the 1980s the Dudley Square neighborhood of Roxbury was facing significant challenges. Absentee landlords had allowed property to deteriorate, left units vacant, or had used arson to raze buildings and make insurance claims. Facing what many considered insurmountable obstacles, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative was formed to create a comprehensive plan for “development without displacement.”