Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
9-2023
Abstract
Traditional U.S. rental housing data sources such as the American Community Survey and the American Housing Survey report on the transacted market—what existing renters pay each month. They do not explicitly tell us about the spot market—that is, the asking rents that current homeseekers must pay to acquire housing—though they are routinely used as a proxy. This study compares governmental data to millions of contemporaneous rental listings and finds that asking rents diverge substantially from these most recent estimates. Conventional housing data understate current market conditions and affordability challenges, especially in cities with tight and expensive rental markets.
Keywords
affordable housing, census data, craigslist, fair market rent, rental housing, technology
Discipline
Economics
Research Areas
Integrative Research Areas
Publication
Journal of Planning Education and Research
Volume
43
Issue
3
First Page
525
Last Page
537
ISSN
0739-456X
Identifier
10.1177/0739456X20904435
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Citation
BOEING, Geoff; WEGMANN, Jake; and JIAO, Junfeng.
Rental housing spot markets: how online information exchanges can supplement transacted-rents data. (2023). Journal of Planning Education and Research. 43, (3), 525-537.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/507
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X20904435