Seminar Vol. 152
Title: Not in My Neighbor's Back Yard? Laneway Homes and Neighbors' Property Values
Speaker: Tsur Somerville, UBC Sauder School of Business
Time: May 9th, 2019 13:30–15:10
Venue: Conference Room 106B, Zhonghui Building (IESR, JNU College of Economics)
About the speaker:
Tsur Somerville is an Associate Professor and holder of the Real Estate Foundation Professorship in Real Estate Finance at the Sauder School of Business at UBC (Canada). He is currently a Senior Fellow with the UBC Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate, where he previously served as the Director for 15 years. His research on real estate development, mortgage and real estate finance, and housing markets has been published in the leading academic journals in the field of urban, housing and real estate market, such as Journal of Urban Economics, Real Estate Economics, and Journal of Housing Economics. In addition to his academic research, Tsur Somerville is a frequent commentator in the local and national media on Canadian real estate markets. The economist currently sits on the Editorial Boards of International Real Estate Review, International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, Journal of Real Estate Research, and Real Estate Economics. The economist has also served as an officer of several academic organizations in the field. He is currently a NAIOP Distinguished Fellow. Tsur Somerville received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1994.
Abstract:
Single family zoning is often defended by homeowners as necessary to preserve neighborhood amenities, but blamed by economists for making housing less affordable by constraining supply. In 2009, the City of Vancouver (Canada) rezoned 95% of single family areas to allow small “laneway homes” behind main residential structures. The goal was to increase rental housing supply with minimal disruption to rezoned neighborhoods. We exploit this regulatory change to estimate the magnitude of externalities from density. We find small and statistically insignificant average spillovers from the addition of laneway housing on the values of adjacent properties. Laneway homes impact is greater and statistically different from zero on more expensive properties.
