Rental Property Sales and Housing Insecurity: Evidence from Linked Administrative Data in North Carolina

• In Event: Housing Policy, Residential Mobility, and Inequality: New Perspectives on Residential Change

Abstract

Recent work suggests that property sales are associated with increased prevalence of eviction filings. However, how sales—and other changes to rental properties like renovations and demolitions—influence residential mobility or children’s enrollment in school is unknown. To address this gap, this paper asks the question: How do changes to rental properties influence housing insecurity among families with children? We conduct analysis with an innovative data linkage of property-level data on real estate transactions and building permits with student-level records on home address and school registration for public school students in the state of North Carolina from 2017-2023. 

In previous work, we found that children living in multifamily housing sold or demolished during the 2019 or 2020 school year were 15% and 40% more likely to experience a residential move before the start of the 2021 school year, respectively, in comparison to children who lived in stably owned and maintained multifamily housing in the same neighborhood. However, neither property sales nor demolitions increased the probability of school switches. Together, these findings imply that although property sales and demolitions may cause housing displacement, a combination of family’s concerted efforts and a policy that ensures consistent school enrollment during housing insecurity may help students remain in their school of origin. 

In this follow-up work, we will expand the sample across space (from one county in North Carolina to all 100 counties) and time (from one time period between 2019-2021 to a panel of students covering the 2017 through 2023 school years). Using this expanded sample, we will analyze variation in residential mobility and school switching within individuals (using individual-fixed effects regression models). Additionally, we will integrate these data with indicators of homelessness and housing insecurity, as defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, to determine whether students moving from sold or demolished properties experience changes to their housing insecure status. Finally, we will assess competing mechanisms explaining increased residential mobility but not school switching by assessing distance of students’ new residential addresses from their schools of origin.

Authors

• Warren Robert Lowell, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Anna Gassman-Pines, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Marcos A Rangel
  Non-Presenting Co-Author