Building Homes, Reviving Neighborhoods: Spillovers from Subsidized Construction of Owner-Occupied Housing in New York City

This article examines the impact of two New York City homeownership programs on surrounding property values. Both programs, Nehemiah Program and the Partnership New Homes program subsidize the construction of affordable owner-occupied homes in distressed neighborhoods. We use a geocoded data set that includes every property transaction in the City from 1980 to 1999.

Our analysis relies on a difference-in-difference approach. Specifically, we compare the prices of properties in small rings surrounding the Partnership and Nehemiah sites with prices of comparable properties that are in the same ZIP code but outside the ring. We then examine whether the magnitude of this difference changes after the completion of a homeownership development. Our results show that during the past two decades prices of properties in the rings surrounding the homeownership projects have risen relative to their ZIP codes. Results suggest that part of that rise is attributable to the affordable homeownership programs.