Subtheme: Speculation

In 2023, MAPC released the “Homes for Profit” report about the negative effects of speculation in the Metro Boston housing market, including driving up prices and displacing residents. Undertaking an analysis of more than twenty years of real estate transactions, students can build on MAPC’s work to dive deeper into these questions to analyze how much profit investors are making from “flips”, examine large corporations buying up housing stock, and/or visualize who (and where) is being most affected by speculative investment.

Background Reading

  1. Homes for Profit: An Analysis of Investor Activity in the Greater Boston Residential Real Estate Market, 2000 - 2022 – An important report by our partner, MAPC, about the negative impacts of speculation on housing affordability. Uses the same datasets as listed below.
  2. When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord – A data journalism piece by ProPublica (you may have already read this in A1) about giant private equity firms that have been buying up apartment buildings nationwide to make a profit.

Datasets for the Final Project

  1. Residential sales data in the City of Boston, 2000-2023 – All residential sales transactions in the City of Boston between 2000-2023. Includes information about seller, buyer, price, location, whether the sale constitutes a “flip”, and much more.
  2. Residential sales data in Metro Boston, 2000-2023 – All residential sales transactions in the Metro Boston region between 2000-2023. Includes information about seller, buyer, price, location, and much more.
  3. Residential sales data in Metro Boston with census data
    1. 2010 data - aggregates residential sales from 2000-2010 to 2010 census tracts and adds in demographic characteristics (race, income, etc)
    2. 2020 data - aggregates residential sales from 2011-2020 to 2020 census tracts and adds in demographic characteristics (race, income, etc)
  4. Geographic data for making maps
  1. Affordable Homes Act – See specifically the provision about levying a transfer fee on large sales which would help deter speculation and “flipping” - short-term sales. See also any measures that relate to rent stabilization/rent control which could potentially deter speculators from jacking up rents.
  2. Local Option Transfer Fees - Similar to #1. Bills proposed in the Massachusetts House and Senate would allow towns to impose transfer fees (0.5% - 2% of the sale price) on large real estate sales as a way to deter flipping and to generate revenue for affordable housing.
  3. Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) – Bills proposed in the Massachusetts House and Senate In order to prevent the displacement that occurs when properties are foreclosed or subject to short sale, this bill would give tenants in these properties a right to purchase the property or assign their right to purchase to a non-profit developer.