Controlling Residential Stakes

34 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2009 Last revised: 24 Jun 2010

See all articles by Lee Anne Fennell

Lee Anne Fennell

University of Chicago - Law School

Julie Roin

University of Chicago Law School

Date Written: February 24, 2010

Abstract

Local communities often suffer when residents have too small a stake in their homes — a point underscored by recent rashes of foreclosures and abandonments, and implicated by longstanding questions about the effects on communities of renters and owner-occupants, respectively. However, homeowners with too great a financial stake in their homes can also cause difficulties for local governance by acting as risk-averse NIMBYs. Local governments should have a strong interest in helping members of their communities move away from problematic forms of stakeholding and toward more desirable intermediate positions. This essay examines how and why governmental entities at the state and local levels might regulate or shape the financial stakes that residents have in their homes. We give particular attention to the role local governments may play in facilitating homeowner and tenant access to index-based financial instruments that adjust residential risk-bearing. More radically, we suggest that local governments, assisted by state law, could formulate shared equity arrangements in which local residents hold stakes in the housing markets of surrounding localities as well as in their own jurisdictions.

Keywords: housing, gentrification, rent control, exclusionary zoning, foreclosure, home equity insurance, shared equity, index-based options

Suggested Citation

Fennell, Lee Anne and Roin, Julie, Controlling Residential Stakes (February 24, 2010). University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 77, p. 143, 2010, University of Chicago Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 477, University of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 272, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1452887

Lee Anne Fennell (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-0603 (Phone)

Julie Roin

University of Chicago Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-5314 (Phone)

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