Hartrey Advisors
Some Recent Research by Jack Goodman
(most recent listed first)
Remaking Multifamily Finance
In 2012 Jack Goodman assisted one of the nation's largest multifamily lenders in forecasting the multifamily finance industry under a revamped regulatory structure.
Forecasting Rental Program Costs
Accurate forecasts of the subsidy costs of major housing assistance programs are important for budget planning. In 2011-2012 Jack Goodman assisted Econometrica, Inc. in a project for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to develop improved forecasting models for the subsidy costs of the Department's largest rental housing assistance programs.
FHA Multifamily Loan Performance
Appropriate pricing of the insurance provided on multifamily mortgage loans originated through the Federal Housing Administration is important for efficient operation of this segment of the mortgage market. From 2003 through 2008, Jack Goodman advised the BearingPoint consultancy on their ongoing work, with TAC Technologies, for the FHA on improved methods for forecasting FHA multifamily loan performance.
Multifamily Mortgage Market Trends and Prospects
In cooperation with Abt Associates, Hartrey Advisors in 2008 assisted the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Policy Development and Research in monitoring and interpreting conditions in the multifamily mortgage market, updating work first undertaken for the Department in 2003 and 2004.
Time Use by Renters and Owners
How apartment renters and home owners spend their time is the topic of a project now underway at Hartrey Advisors. Using data from the American Time Use Survey, this study is investigating how preferences and constraints shape how adults use their time and help explain the observed differences in how renters and owners spend their time. Preliminary findings are reported in two studies available by clicking on their titles: "Housing Situation and Time Use," and "When Are Apartment Residents Home?"
Trends in the Multifamily Mortgage Market
The past ten years have seen major changes in the volume, sources, and characteristics of mortgage financing for multifamily housing. Hartrey Advisors recently assisted Econometrica, Inc. in a project for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that tapped the Residential Finance Survey to describe these changes and to undertake more focused studies of specific topics such as financing for new multifamily construction and differences in the financing of small and large apartment communities.
Apartments and Property Taxes
The property tax on housing is a major component of local government revenues and of consumers' housing costs. In a recently completed study, Jack Goodman estimates and interprets differences in tax rates by location, property value, structure type, and tenure form. Preliminary results were reported in a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies working paper at http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/finance/w05-2.pdf . The final version of "Houses, Apartments, and the Incidence of Property Taxes" was published in Housing Policy Debate in 2006 (Vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1-26).
Housing Cooperatives
Cooperatively owned housing plays a unique role as a source of affordable housing in selected local markets in the Northeast and elsewhere, but little information is available on the size or characteristics of this specialized component of the nation's housing stock. With support from one of the nation's largest co-op lenders, Hartrey Advisors in 2005 assembled the first national statistical portrait of housing cooperatives and compared co-ops with other segments of the housing market.
Affordable Rental Housing
Housing affordability is a topic of broad importance for which measurement issues sometimes confuse the debate about trends, causes, and consequences. Working with researchers at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, where he served as a Fellow in Housing Studies during 2003-2005, Jack Goodman tackled these measurement issues in a project supported by the MacArthur Foundation. Two recent reports from that project, one on measuring rental housing affordability and the other on price indexes for rental housing, are available on the Joint Center's Web site at www.jchs.harvard.edu
Market Segments for Apartments
Hartrey Advisors continues to advise some of the nation's largest and most respected apartment companies on the outlook for apartments in geographic and product-type segments of the apartment market. Assignments have been undertaken recently for three nationally ranked firms on a variety of forecasting and portfolio optimization tasks.
Operating Costs of Apartments
Operating costs are an important, but not much studied, component of apartment financial performance. Research by Hartrey Advisors established an economic framework for interpreting operating costs and used a unique data set to investigate the determinants of operating costs. The research findings are available in a working paper of the Joint Center for Housing Studies (click here) and were published in the Journal of Housing Economics [vol. 13 (2004), pp. 226-244)].
Working Families and Homeownership
For most population groups, homeownership rates have increased to record highs over the past ten years. However, working families with children are a prominent exception. At the request of the Center for Housing Policy, the research affiliate of the National Housing Conference, Hartrey Advisors investigated the long-term homeownership trends of this group, trends in their housing costs, and the reasons for those trends. Information about the Center for Housing Policy is available at www.nhc.org .
The Middle Market for Rental Housing
Compared to upscale apartments and affordable housing, the middle market for multifamily rental housing is both larger and less well understood. Jack Goodman assisted researchers at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies in their analysis of this important segment of the nation's housing stock. The final report, Middle Market Rentals: Hiding in Plain Sight, can be downloaded from the Joint Center's Website, www.jchs.harvard.edu .
House Price Trends and Determinants
The measurement and interpretation of changes in house prices is the subject of a research project on which Jack Goodman served as an advisor. The project was conducted by Abt Associates under a contract with the Office of Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Home Ownership and Investments in Real Estate Stocks
How does homeownership affect the appropriate role of real estate stocks in a household's investment portfolio? That is the question addressed in a recently completed Hartrey project sponsored by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts. The research report can also be accessed by clicking here. A revised version was published in the Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management, Volume 9 (May-August, 2003), pp. 93-107, and was awarded the Institutional Real Estate, Inc. Manuscript Prize for the best study published in the Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management in 2003..
Long-Term Rental Market Performance
Results from Census 2000 are providing new insights into the long-run performance of local housing markets throughout the country. Hartrey Advisors is using these results in advising clients on strategic decisions on market and submarket selection and pricing. A summary listing of long-term rent growth in the nation's largest metropolitan apartment markets can be accessed by clicking here.
Apartment Performance in Good Times and Bad
In 2002 Hartrey Advisors received a grant from the Real Estate Research Institute for research on the effects of macroeconomic conditions on rents and occupancies in different segments of the apartment market. The recently completed project used data from a nationally representative sample of apartments to determine whether apartments of different quality grades are differentially affected by income and job growth at the national level as well as in the local metropolitan market. Results were presented at the 2003 RERI Research Conference. The research paper can be accessed by clicking here. More information about the Real Estate Research Institute is available at www.reri.org.
Housing Affordability and Public Policy
At the request of the Congressionally sponsored Millennial Housing Commission, Hartrey Advisors recently completed a report summarizing and interpreting trends in housing affordability since the mid-1980s and some of the implications for government housing policy. The report, "Housing Affordability in the United States: Trends, Interpretations, and Outlook," is available by clicking on its title. In addition, Jack Goodman spoke on the topic of housing affordability and public policy at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February 2002. His presentation can be accessed by clicking here.
Demand for In-Town Real Estate
This study uses the most recent available data to examine trends in demand for real estate in the central cities of each of the nation's 25 largest metropolitan areas. Among the questions addressed: How have big cities fared relative to their surrounding suburban rings during the past eight years of economic expansion? Have their been any notable changes in trend in the past year? What might happen to these close-in markets in an economic downturn? The study, titled "The Latest on Demand for In-Town Real Estate" appears in Institutional Investor's Real Estate Finance, Winter 2001.
Capital Requirements for Real Estate Lenders
Hartrey Advisors in 2001 assisted one of the nation's largest multifamily lenders in its research to determine the appropriate level of equity capital for that company to maintain.
Prospects for the Upscale Apartment Market
One of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. housing market in recent years has been top-end rental apartments. This study, published by the National Multi Housing Council (www.nmhc.org, then click on Research and Statistics, then on NMHC Research Publications), investigates the segment of the apartment market catering to higher income individuals and households. The report begins with a statistical portrait of the residents and housing at the top of the apartment market, then tracks some of the historical trends, and finally concludes with a discussion of the future prospects for this segment of the apartment market.
Sizing the Multifamily Mortgage Market
Hartrey Advisors in 2001 helped a leading national multifamily lender forecast growth in the overall size and specific segments of the multifamily loan market.
Outlook for Capital Improvements to Apartments
Improvements to existing apartments are a primary tool for raising housing quality. This report begins by discussing why the pace of capital improvements to multifamily rental housing is likely to increase and then estimates the incidence, expenditures and job mix of capital improvements and provides projections of future capital improvements to apartments in each of the 50 states and 25 largest metropolitan areas. Conducted by Jack Goodman at the National Multi Housing Council, with financial support from Fannie Mae (www.nmhc.org, then click on Research and Statistics, then on NMHC Research Publications).
Urban Apartment Construction Trends
This study describes and interprets trends in central city and suburban housing construction during the 1990s, using data from each of the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas. The description draws on a database of building permits assembled especially for this project. Trends in single-family and multifamily construction are compared and contrasted. The paper concludes with an interpretation of the findings and some implications for the future pattern of city and suburban housing construction. Conducted by Jack Goodman at the National Multi Housing Council (www.nmhc.org, then click on Research and Statistics, then on NMHC Research Publications).
Operating Costs of Public Housing
Government reimbursement of the operating costs of public housing are determined in part on the locations, size, and other characteristics of those properties that influence costs. Proper specification and calibration of the funding formulas is important for compensating public housing authorities for costs they cannot control while also not rewarding inefficient management. Hartrey Advisors is currently providing econometric support to the Compass Group and Harvard University in an investigation of possible improvements to the current funding system. See http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/phocs/
Other Publicly Available Studies by Jack Goodman include:
“The Changing Demography of Multifamily Rental Housing,” Housing Policy Debate, Winter 1999.
“Performance Across Local Apartment Markets,” Real Estate Finance, Winter 1999.
“Rising Homeownership and Investments in Rental Housing,” National Real Estate Investor, November 1998.
“The Multifamily Outlook,” Urban Land, November 1998.
Making Sense of Real Estate Consolidation,” Real Estate Finance, Spring 1998.
“It’s Not Easy Being Big,” Units, January 1998.
“Consolidation in the Apartment Industry,” Urban Land, November 1997.
“The Budget Accord and the Rental Housing Market,” Real Estate Finance Review Vol. 1, No. 4, Fall 1997, pp. 19-21.
“Rating the Quality of Multifamily Housing,” Real Estate Finance v. 14 no. 4 (Summer 1997).
“Apartment Demographics: Good for the Long Haul?” Real Estate Finance V.13 no. 4 (Winter 1997): 76-83.
“Does FHA Increase Home Ownership or Just Accelerate It?” with Joseph Nichols, Journal of Housing Economics 6 (1997):184-202.
“Aggregation of Local Housing Markets,” Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 16:1 (1998): 43-53.
"Turnover as a Measure of Demand for Existing Homes," with James Berkovec, Real Estate Economics, 4 (1996):421-440.
"The Co-Op Discount," with Allen Goodman, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 14 (1997): 223-233.
"Explaining the Vacancy Rate -- Rent Paradox of the 1980s," with Eric Belsky, Journal of Real Estate Research 11, no. 3 (1996): 309-323.
"Top Ten Surprises About the Ownership and Financing of Rental Housing," with Michael Grupe, Real Estate Finance, Winter 1995.
"Using Attitude Data to Forecast Housing Activity," Journal of Real Estate Research, Fall 1994.
"The 1989-92 Credit Crunch in Real Estate," with James T. Fergus, Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, 22 (Spring 1994); (revision of Staff Study #164, Federal Reserve Board, July 1993).
"The Accuracy of Home Owners' Estimates of House Value," with John Ittner, Journal of Housing Economics 2 (1992):339-357.
"A Housing Market Matching Model of the Seasonality in Geographic Mobility," Journal of Real Estate Research 8 (Winter 1993):117-137.
"National Information Systems for Decision Making in Housing and Mortgage Finance," Housing Finance International, Vol. 7, No.1 (September 1992).
"Adjustable-Rate Mortgages and Aggregate Demand for Mortgage Credit," Journal of Housing Economics, 2 (1992):1-16.
"The Future Supply of Mortgage Credit," Real Estate Review, Winter 1992.
"RTC Real Estate Sales: Just Do It," Real Estate Review, Winter 1991.
"Housing and the Weather," Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, Spring 1987.
"Why Housing Forecasts Go Awry," with Stuart A. Gabriel, Real Estate Review, Fall 1987.
"Economic Implications of Changing Population Trends," with W. Wascher and S. Burch, Federal Reserve Bulletin, December 1986.
"Reducing the Error in Monthly Housing Starts Estimates," Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, Winter 1986.
"Adjustable-Rate Lending to Consumers," with Charles A. Luckett, Federal Reserve Bulletin, November 1985.
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