Assessing Property Value Impacts of Dispersed Housing Subsidy Programs: Final Report

Efforts to expand affordable housing opportunities beyond high-level areas often provoke opposition from homeowners who fear that the proximity of lower income families will erode their property values. Assessing Property Value Impacts of Dispersed Housing Subsidy Programs adds new weight, as well as important caveats, to earlier research indicating that subsidized housing has a benign or even positive impact on home values when carefully sited and maintained.

This report describes and analyzes the factors that influence the complex dynamics of neighborhood real estate markets. As applied to programs in Denver and Baltimore City that are broadly representative of key housing choice strategies, this research offers lessons for policy makers who design and implement subsidy programs as well as property owners in whose neighborhoods they operate.