Detecting Discriminatory Listing Practices in Rental Housing Markets

Principal Investigator:

Lu Han, professor of real estate and urban land economics

Co-Principal Investigator:

Christopher Timmins, professor of real estate and urban land economics

Over the past decade, a range of studies have shown that racial minorities face substantial discrimination in a wide range of market activities, from applying for a job to renting an apartment. In the case of the housing market, racial discrimination can take place at various stages of housing transactions, ranging from searching for housing, to price/rent negotiation, to home appraisal and mortgage lending.

This project will develop a method that reveals discriminatory practice that would otherwise go undetected in the housing market. The key ingredient for the research is access to a comprehensive panel dataset of real estate listings and tenants’ histories spanning recent years for the entire United States. The researchers will compile these data by leveraging several sources of new information about housing markets.

The plan is to first demonstrate this methodology for discrimination detection on a small scale in a single city and to then use that as the basis for an application for funding to conduct the analysis on a large scale. A key contribution of this project is to combine comprehensive data collection, rigorous empirical analysis and insights from theoretical models to detect discriminatory listing by landlords and evaluate its welfare impacts for minority renters.

The research will help policymakers and fair housing practitioners better understand patterns of discrimination. Such understanding is crucial for designing more effective and targeted policies that aim to achieve equal access to housing opportunities and neighborhood amenities. The investigators plan to distribute their research findings widely to the academic community by publishing at the top academic journals and presenting at seminars and conferences. They also plan to introduce these methods to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).