Working Paper

Land Bank 2.0: an empirical evaluation

Abstract: Cuyahoga County created a land bank in 2009 explicitly intended to acquire low-value properties, mitigate blighted housing, help stabilize neighborhoods, and slow the decline of property values. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the land bank by estimating spatially-corrected hedonic price models using sales near the land bank homes. Homes that sold within 500 feet of a property that would be acquired by the land bank in the next six months show a 3 to 5 percent discount versus observationally similar homes. Homes that sold within 500 feet of a land bank owned home sold at prices approximately 5 percent higher than similar homes. A land bank demolition appears to have a positive externality, which adds 9 percent to the value of a nearby home sale. These results are consistent through a wide variety of specifications, but they are not measured precisely enough to be statistically significant.

Keywords: Housing policy; Housing;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Part of Series: Working Papers (Old Series)

Publication Date: 2014-09-01

Number: 1230