Tag Archives: University of Michigan

Divorce and The Housing Market

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Marketplace interviewed me in for this response to a reader’s question, Can Divorce Affect The Housing Market? The story reads,

How much does divorce affect the economy, especially housing prices? In Davis, California, where I live, at least four households on my block have kids who effectively have a second house somewhere else in town with their other parent.

We know the effects divorce can have on household finances — it can lead to a decline in income, especially for women. One study from researchers at the University of Michigan and Boston University found that women increased “their labor in the workforce” following a divorce. But when it comes to the housing market, there’s little economic research on this topic.

The evidence we do have indicates that divorce can lead to a decline in homeownership rates, said Anthony Orlando, an associate professor of finance, real estate and law at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, pointing to one Denmark study from 2019 that used a model to predict the correlation between the two.

“When there’s a divorce, there’s usually a sharp drop in wealth or net worth, because they’re splitting assets and there are costs associated with the divorce, paying for lawyers, etc. and all those things tend to reduce homeownership,” Orlando said. “If you’re only relying on your income rather than also having somebody else’s, you’re less diversified, and you might have more difficulty making the mortgage payments.”

Orlando said he hasn’t seen good studies on how divorce affects housing prices, but if there’s a decline in homeownership demand, then prices could decline.

The inverse is also true – the state of the housing market affects divorce.

“If housing prices increase significantly, there’s some evidence suggesting that divorce rates among homeowners actually goes down, and the reason is because when housing prices increase, there’s less financial stress. The married couple now has a house that’s worth more money,” Orlando said.

Rising rental prices could also make couples more hesitant to take the leap toward divorce. When housing prices go up, so do prices in the rental market. If someone is considering dissolving their marriage and sees high apartment prices, they might decide it doesn’t make financial sense to divorce, Orlando said.

There’s also a correlation between the broader economy and divorce.

“When the economy is hot, people divorce at higher rates, and when the economy is weak, it’s in recession, they divorce at lower rates,” said David Reiss, a law professor at Cornell University who studies housing policy.

Their mortgage may be underwater and they could be financially strapped, making the prospect of divorce difficult, Reiss said.

“Most of us in our day-to-day lives think to ourselves that questions of love and hate and relationships are driven by us as people,” Reiss said. But when you take a 10,000-foot view, you see how much the economy can drive our decisions, Reiss said.

Millennial Homeowners Following ‘Rents

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TheStreet.com quoted me in Potential Homeowners Follow in Footsteps of Parents. It opens,

Consumers tend to follow the strategies of their parents when they are faced with whether they should stick with renting or buying their first home.

Potential homeowners, including both Gen X-ers and Millennials, are influenced by the decisions made by their parents. As homeownership rates in the U.S. have fallen to a 51-year low, one reason Gen Y-ers tend to skip homeownership is due to the choice made by their parents while others are faced with mounting student loans and higher costs to purchase a house.

Consumers are nearly three times as likely to purchase a house if their parents were homeowners compared to parents who rented, said Felipe Chacon, a housing data analyst at Trulia, a San Francisco-based real estate website, which analyzed over four decades of data from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

 “What the analysis in the report suggests is that people who grew up in rented homes are less likely to own their own home, even after you exclude those who have gotten financial help from their folks or their spouse’s folks,” he said.
As Millennials are heading toward their 30s, the impact of their childhood is taking effect as ones which grew up in homes the parents owned were 2.8 times more likely to seek the same goal, the researchers found. The trend of home ownership has declined among Millennials and part of the reason could be that people who are 19 to 34 years are less likely to have been raised in homes where their parents owned the homes compared to Gen X-ers or those who are 35 to 45 years old.
“It could simply be an issue of values, where those from owned homes make homeownership a more urgent priority and strive to reach it sooner simply because it is familiar and comfortable to them,” Chacon said.
Consumers are probably more likely to buy a house if their extended family can explain how the process works and what criteria should be prioritized from improving their credit score to saving for a down payment.
“It probably helps to have parents and relatives around who can help you navigate the system as a first time homebuyer,” he said. “Since Millennials, especially younger ones seem to be slightly less likely to be raised in owned homes, there could be a long term cooling effect on the ownership rate among this group.”
The attitude of Americans owning their homes and pursuing the traditional “American Dream” has remained pretty steady over the past five years. In fact, more Millennials are eager to purchase a home and 80% expressed this sentiment in 2015 compared to 71% in 2010, according to a Trulia survey. The overall population mirrors this belief with 75 % who agree in 2015 from 72% in 2010.
One of the hurdles to homeownership is accruing enough money for the down payment. Millennials who grew up with parents who owned a home received more help financially with 11.4% who were given money compared with 2.6% of those who grew up in mostly rented homes.
“The American homeownership rate carries a lot of political and social significance with it and for many, it is seen as a marker of the health of American society,” said David Reiss, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School in New York. “The significant dip in the homeownership rate that has occurred since the financial crisis has shaken the confidence of many that the nation’s households are on solid footing.”